Sneaking and Snakeskin
by Fluffy Darkness
Summary: For the curse of the Dark One to be such a burden, it must entail more than scales, which Belle doesn't mind anyway. Rumpelstiltskin must overcome more obstacles than just his cowardice for a happy ending to be possible. Can he?
1. Part I

_So, this started out as a characters study and turned into...whatever exactly this is. I'm not sure if this deserves the rating, but I figured I'd be safe just in case.  
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_Disclaimer: I own nothing._

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It is on a Tuesday evening that Belle decides to once again resume the task of organizing the library. Well, it is actually Rumpelstiltskin's alchemy lab, but that is where he keeps all of his books, and so she has dubbed it the "labrary." He owns hundreds of books, all wonderfully out of order and arranged without rhyme or reason, and she presumes that he does not need them to be organized in order to find ones that he requires, simply able to summon the tomes from their shelves by magic. She, however, does not possess such qualities and refuses to allow the room to continue existing in such a state of disarray. The task is something she has been working at for several weeks, as it is not one of her required chores, an undertaking she assumed of her own accord, and must come after those appointed to her by her master. Supper's dishes have been cleaned and put away, and thus she is free to do as she pleases.

As she treks up the spiral stairs that lead to the labrary, she pauses at the sound of his voice echoing from above. It does not surprise her, as she has found him speaking to himself on many occasions, a thing that she notices herself doing every now and then when she cleans, left on her own for hours on end. It is a habit in which lonely people engage, she concludes, and she is hesitant to disturb him. Still, there are only a couple hours of daylight remaining, and if she does not wish to read book titles by candlelight then she really must get to work now. Slowly, she starts up the steps again. Her stocking-clad feet make no sound against the wooden stairs and her presence is still unnoticed when her eyes can finally peek over the landing and peer through the slats in the railing to behold an unusual sight.

The room is empty, no sign of his alchemy equipment, no tables cluttered with assorted tools or beakers and test tubes filled with substances she can never, nor wants to, identify, no cabinet holding bottled everything she could possibly imagine. Even the rolling ladder has disappeared. All that remains is a single chair situated in the middle of the room, on which sits a young man, younger than she, arms pressed to his sides. Rumpelstiltskin, hands clasped behind his back, slowly circles him.

"I'm not going to give it to you," the boy states, jaw set and eyes determined. He twists his head and shoulders, wiggles his hands, but his arms remain motionless, as though tied to the chair by invisible rope.

"We had a deal, dearie," he snaps. "My magic beans for your cow and any stringed instruments you happened to encounter in the future."

"An instrument that you didn't say was magic." He moves his body as thought trying to rock the chair from side to side, but the piece of furniture is firmly attached to the floor.

"You never asked. You shouldn't have signed if you didn't understand the terms, but you did, see?" A contract appears in his hand, and he leans over to shove it in the lad's face, pointing at what Belle assumes is a signature. "You made your choice and you must live up to it. Now, give me my harp." He straightens up, coming to stand behind the chair, and he clamps his hands down on the boy's shoulders, nails digging in until a cry of pain echoes throughout the library.

Rumpelstiltskin is, in many ways, a snake. He is a predator, always watching his prey from the shadows; he had toyed with her father, appearing when they had moved on from a state of desperation to that of simple hopelessness, giving them no idea that he was coming, and seeming to materialize out of thin air only once he desired to be seen. Even now, as he resumes his slow circling, letting the lad fidget and squirm under his dark, unwavering gaze, it may be a trick of the fading light, but he seems to dissolve into the shadows every now and then only to appear a few feet away.

Sometimes, when Belle is reading, she will glance up from her book to catch him watching her from his place at the spinning wheel or sitting in front of the fireplace. He does not hurriedly look away when she catches him, but holds her steady gaze because, she thinks, he wants her to know that he watches her.

"No one breaks a deal with me," he sneers. His fingers twitch, and the lad stops his constant shifting, eyes widening in panic. The skin around his neck has drawn inward, or…been pushed inward, as though something is squeezing. Rumpelstiltskin's tone changes to deceivingly amiable, and he pays no mind to the boy's suffering. "Your mother is doing well, I take it? Golden eggs and whatnot letting her live in luxury? It would be terrible if something were to happen to her." His cackle fills the room for a moment, and he bares his yellow, jagged teeth in a cruel smile. "You break a deal with me, dearie, and I break everything that you cherish."

He has snake eyes, the kind that pierce a target's heart and leave them rooted to the spot in fear. It is those eyes that she, looking over the top of her book, finds staring at her from across the room, those eyes that arrest her and seem to peer inside her to view her very thoughts and desires, that make her pulse race so hard that surely he can hear it, taste it. People flinch away from his voice, his gestures, the exaggerated everything which permeates his being; and his laugh, more natural than anything he does, is what seems to unnerve them the most. Then, when he has them exactly where he wants them, he strikes, presents a deal that they will agree to out of sheer desperation. She watched it happen in the war room, and now she is witnessing it again with this boy.

Even his manner of dress is meant to add to the effect. The dragon hide coats and vests in which he clothes himself, the leather pants that cling to him like a second skin are meant to give off that very impression, that they are a part of him, that he is even more inhuman than people already perceive him to be.

Belle, however, has come to find his movements…mesmerizing. The fluidity of his svelte figure, so nimble and lissome, the intricate footwork he incorporates into his near dance around the lad. She would be lying to herself if she said that her eyes did not stray down to his backside more often than they should, but every step he takes creates a faint, barely audible creak that immediately draws her attention. And his hands, oh she loves to watch his hands, constantly in motion, fingers fluttering. She imagines those blackened nails caressing along her jawline, down the curve of her throat, over her collarbone, and she shivers.

He brings his face within inches of the boy's, who is still trying to gasp in stolen air. "So, what'll it be?"

The lad nods his head quickly, blond bangs disheveled and obscuring his eyes. The force wrapped around his throat must have relinquished its hold, for he sucks in a loud breath and coughs. "Fine, the harp is yours," he croaks. The boy's face crumples, brave façade demolished.

Rumpelstiltskin giggles again, a wide grin splitting his face. "Wonderful. I'll be there tomorrow to collect."

The transaction complete, he casually flicks his wrist and the lad vanishes in a small cloud of violet smoke, while the rest of the furniture appears, though not exactly in the same spots she recalls them sitting. As the grin falls from his face, he drags the chair over to a desk, slides his coat off of his shoulders, which slouch imperceptibly, and hangs it on the back of the chair. A twitch of those long fingers, and a leather-bound journal appears on the desk in yet another swirl of smoke. He sits, opens the journal to a page, and begins to write, quill scratching against paper.

Certain that it is safe to appear without reproach, Belle pads up the last few steps. He jerks his head up as a floorboard creaks beneath her weight, eyes flashing for a moment until he identifies the intruder.

"Finished all your work, dearie?" he asks as he returns to his writing. His voice is not quite the falsetto he had used with the boy.

"Yes, did you redecorate?" she inquires, fetching the rolling ladder from where he conjured it back into existence. For a moment, abashment flits across his face, either because he hoped she would not notice, or he did not notice it himself. Oddly, he seems to want to keep his dealings a secret. What she cannot decide is whether he wishes to keep them a secret in general or keep them a secret from her specifically.

"I thought some change was in order," he mutters too quickly, an excuse she does not think she would have believed even if she was not privy to the truth.

Belle suppresses the urge to roll her eyes as she drags the ladder around the room to its proper spot; however, there is an obstruction. Her master's chair is in the way. He managed to position the desk right in front of the shelf she was last working on.

She gently clears her throat, at which he lifts his eyes to consider her. He raises a brow ever so slightly.

"I, um, I need to get through." She gestures toward the too-small space between the wall and the chair.

Wordlessly, he sends the desk sliding forward about a foot and scoots in, allowing her enough room to get through. As she passes behind him, he sweeps a lock of hair out of his face, and her eyes are drawn immediately to his countenance.

During these months of living with him, Belle has grown accustomed to her employer's unique appearance, even come to appreciate it. One must get close, which no one wishes to do, to behold (enjoy?) the full effect of his shining, reptilian scales. Up close, he is enthralling. He does not glitter. No, that would be silly. Rather, his skin has a dull sheen to it, which she finds delightful when he shifts and the ebbing sunlight strikes him at just the right angle. She discovers herself wanting to brush her fingertips over the faintest dusting of gold that coats his scales. They are a snake's scales, so tiny, overlapping flawlessly with a green-grey-gold marbled effect like that of granite. If she scratched hard enough, she wonders, would his scales flake off, and would gold dust come away beneath her fingernails?

Belle starts up the ladder, back in its proper place, though it should not be behind the desk, which is certainly not where it belongs. She pauses after a few rungs to look over his shoulder; the journal he is bent over seems to be a register of sorts, in which he is furiously scribbling who-knows-what in a small, cramped script that she cannot decipher at this distance. She makes her way up the rest of the ladder and sets about moving around heavy tomes, setting some in a pile on the top rung and swapping them out for others on the shelves now and then.

The manic scratching of his quill stops, he leans back in the chair, and he rubs a hand over his face. He unfastens the top two buttons of his vest. There is a subtle lethargy about him; perhaps the magic tires him more than he cares to admit.

Belle lets go of the ladder with one hand and leans forward as far as possible without losing her balance. She stares at the exposed patch of his chest, trying to view more than the fabric allows, and she wonders, not for the first time, exactly how much of his lean frame is covered by those scales. His palms are bare, simply calloused, which she knows from brief touches, so different from the slightly rough, though not unpleasantly so, texture of knuckles brushed when passing a cup. Such clothes on any ordinary man would leave so little to the imagination, but he is another matter entirely. Rumpelstiltskin is a man, but he is anything but ordinary; he is a mystery. To peel away the layers of leather vest and silk shirt, and press her palms to what lies beneath, another shudder passes through her that reaches her toes. Do the scales increase in size, change color, become lighter or darker…softer? Not that she knows what they feel like, except for those on his hands. She wonders if, should she happen to fall from the ladder, he would to catch her, hold her in those wiry arms and let her rest her cheek against his chest. No, he is in no position to do so, would not be able to react quickly enough, and she does not favor the idea of breaking herself into pieces on the floor. She pushes aside the idea, for now.

Rumpelstiltskin licks his lips. If not for the fact that she has spoken with him, watched him speak, she would consider the idea of his having a forked tongue, which was indeed a rumor she had heard, entirely plausible. He licks his finger before turning a page in the journal and jerks his head up when a thick tome slams to the floor beside him. He swivels around to look up at Belle, whose hands are tightly gripping the ladder and whose cheeks are ablaze. No, he certainly would not have reacted quick enough to catch her. She mutters a jumbled excuse of losing her footing, deciding to leave out the part that she lost said footing because she was imagining that tongue caressing the shell of her ear, leaving a trail of saliva over her navel.

She thinks that other people must find him frightening. He is practically a rumor, a name that is spoken in hushed tones like a forbidden secret. To finally witness this man, with such stories circulating in mind, and his abnormal appearance, mixed with the discomforting panache that he so easily displays, one cannot be blamed for initially finding him unsettling. She admits that though she never feared him, she did originally share some of those thoughts, but no longer is that the case. It is all a performance, she can tell, one that he incorporates into his private life to an extent. When he is spinning at the wheel, however, the act strips away, and the showman becomes…just a man. Others may insist upon the contrary, but she sees beneath the scales; well, not literally, would that not be something? Even now, with no one to impress, because he has no interest in impressing her, he uncoils himself, leaning back in the chair and throwing his head back to stare up at her.

"Enjoying the view, dearie?" he asks, folding his hands over his stomach. His scales are ruddy in the twilight that glints off the expanse of his neck, skin stretched and taut, and dips into the hollow of his throat. She would like to follow that twilight with her tongue.

She swallows, feels that the heat creeping along her cheeks is not abating in the least. "Not at all. Your handwriting is too small and messy to read from up here. You should write bigger, that way I can discover all of your secrets." She smiles. She knows she is a terrible liar.

"And with whom will you share these secrets?" He knows she is lying. She knows that he knows. She wonders if he knows that she knows that he knows; she is certain that he does. Yet, with all of this knowing, she tries to lie anyway. Unlike him, she looks away when caught staring.

"No one. That's the whole point of secrets. They're secret," she whispers the last bit, one hand shielding the side of her mouth conspiratorially. The laugh in her throat burns to ash. It is a joke, and yet…it is not.

This is her little secret. She witnesses the beauty that this man possesses, one that nobody else does. All the more for her, then. She read once in a book that some creatures use their exteriors to make themselves highly conspicuous to potential predators, so that they are noticed, remembered, and then avoided. He all but exudes an air of darkness, pure magic, a warning that clearly states _Look, but do not touch_, which is exactly what she longs to do, a desire that she must keep locked away and swallow the key lest it break free and have its way with her. He repulses most, unnerves the rest, and goes about his deeds with a smile, a laugh, and a spring in his step that only increases their misgivings. In this way, he repels people, and they avoid approaching him until they become so desperate that their only other option is to lie down and die; and in the end, even if that which he offers saves them, they shall still pay dearly.

Her father paid in kin. She does not require much, except for perhaps the odd smidgen of companionship, which really is good for two lonely people to have now and then, and for which she pays dearly every time. She pays in stifled moans and wanton touches carried out by her own too-smooth hands at night, trying to extinguish a blazing heat that she never knew before living here. She had found novels that explored more raunchy subjects, witnessed touches stolen between members of the court, heard stories of passionate broom closet trysts, and before her engagement listened to tales of how Gaston had set many a woman's heart and lower parts aflame. Her betrothed would surely be jealous to discover that he never stirred any such sensations within her, while this man, this so-called beast, sitting beneath her awakens time and time again a deep longing to rub skin against scales, feel him pressing against her inner folds, and curl into his embrace. It is a primal need brought on by a primal sort of beauty. Alone in bed, she builds and builds that heat until she barely slides over the edge and softly tumbles back to earth, and it is not what she wants at all. She wants to be thrust into oblivion and shattered. She wants him to break her into fragments, piece her back together, and shatter her anew.

Belle is no stranger to snakes, happening upon them in the garden sometimes, watching them slither amongst the flowers, even finding the odd bit of shed snakeskin here and there. Does he perhaps shed his scales as well, peeling away dull, dry ones to reveal smooth, shining plates brimming with color? No, that is taking things a bit too far, she decides. Still, she wants to rake her nails down his back – she concludes that they must cover a great deal of him – and feel his scales give way beneath her ministrations, and tumble down her fingers in a shower of gold.

She imagines a forked tongue flicking out against her thundering pulse, hidden fangs puncturing where shoulder meets the column of her throat. She draws nearer with every encounter so that her eyes may drink in the sight of his captivating features, but she is no fool. She remains fully aware of the danger, that he is a predator, and that no one, not even she, is exempt from the category of prey. That previous display of dominance, not meant for her eyes, is only a reminder of the venom he carries, the intensity of the being she serves. Still, she needs a hobby, and organizing dusty tomes is not holding her interest nearly as much as the idea of dallying with danger.

Rumpelstiltskin simply sits there, watching, seeing all these thoughts flash across her eyes. Neither he nor Belle moves, each taking in the inverted view of one other. She feels as though he is reading her as easily as he reads the ancient tomes in the labrary. Speaking of books…

"Pass me that book?" She gestures toward where the tome still lies on the floor; or, where she thinks it lies, as she has yet to look away. _Be brave_, a tiny voice chants in the back of her head. He twists his body, slides from the chair, and sweeps the book into his hand, never tearing his eyes away from hers. He climbs a rung or two, offers the book for her to take. As her hand cradles its spine, her fingertips rest on his knuckles. He does not immediately relinquish his hold, the corners of his mouth twitching.

Her breath hitches.

He must know.

After all, she is a terrible liar.

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_Hope you enjoyed :)_


	2. Part II

_Okay, so two reviewers said that I should continue this…so I have. This thing, whatever it can be called at this point, will either end here, or I can continue with a little idea that will span over three or four more chapters. Readers, please tell me which you would prefer. Enjoy :)  
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A desperate woman will give up what she values above all in order to have that for which she wishes more than anything. When a desperate woman owns nothing but her virginity, she will hand it over, not without qualms of course. A woman uncaring of her virginity does not keep it for long, certainly not long enough to give it to Rumpelstiltskin. He has bartered with maidens for that which keeps them pure and virtuous. Those deals are…not among those of which he is most proud, but he has needs like any other male, and they always give themselves voluntarily. If he proposes and they refuse, so be it, he will not steal that with which they are unwilling to part.

He does not treat the blushing lass roughly once an agreement is reached. He may be a monster, but not that type, and he tries to be gentle. He allows the maiden to choose the location, a bed, a pile of hay, against a tree in the middle of a forest where no one will discover them. He takes her from behind, a courtesy, so that she is not forced to look upon him during the act, allowing her to imagine that she is sharing the moment with someone she adores. He does not speak, kiss her, touch her, save for his hands on her hips, or engage in any sort of foreplay; such actions are unwanted, and their absence removes the aspect of intimacy.

Sometimes she cries. If it is due to pain, he attempts to change his angle or pace, provide her a bit more comfort if possible. If it is due to shame, and he can always tell the difference, he pays her no mind. She made a deal, a choice, one that must be carried out to completion, and he cannot ease the onset of degradation. Afterward, he grants her wish, perhaps thanks her if she was a particularly good sport, and disappears, all usually before she has straightened her skirts. He does not need to worry about rumors spreading about his gentleness when it comes to lying with the fairer sex, for no woman wants to admit to being bedded by the monster that is Rumpelstiltskin.

Never before has he yearned for a woman. He desires the pleasure and satisfaction that the female body affords him from time to time, most certainly, but he has never coveted a specific woman…until Belle.

It has been driving him mad for weeks.

This whole Jack business, while at first an inconvenience, has been a good excuse to spend some time away from the castle, not that he needs one. He has only been gone for a little over a day, but it has been a deeply needed reprieve. However, with his latest contract straightened out and complete, it is time that he returned home to make sure Belle has not managed to set any more fires in his absence (she tries so hard but is dreadfully clumsy). He departs from the foolish lad's home on horseback, choosing to return to the castle by conventional methods instead of by magic in order to allow himself a bit more time before facing Belle once again. Tucking his legs against the horse beneath him, he spurs the creature forward, welcoming the cold air that lashes his arms and face. Having rained earlier, the air smells of pine needles and wet loam, a sharp scent that he wants to enjoy as long as he can.

Belle smells nothing like pine needles and wet loam, but she smells wonderful. She has the scent of a virgin. They all have a distinct aroma, which is how he has never been duped into lying with a whore. The scent they all carry is not one of daffodils and fresh cream, or any other nonsensical combination of nice-smelling things. It is the subtle fragrance of innocence, an intoxicating aroma also carried by children, so he knows it well. He has found that he is quite drawn to it, enjoys allowing it to wash over him.

Whenever Belle approaches, that most basic instinct of any creature rises to the forefront of his mind. For Rumpelstiltskin, however, there is more to his lust than simple physical pleasure. He is drawn to innocence because something within him, the curse running through his veins, compels him to corrupt it. He feels the urge to taint all that is good and pure and spread the darkness he carries. Of course, he has learned to suppress the urge; otherwise, he would be upon every virgin in the enchanted forest without restraint. It is only once he touches touch a girl, begins to engage in the act with her, that his self-control weakens. But when Belle is merely around him, oblivious of the fragrance that she releases, that impulse it is an itch that burrows beneath his scales. And when she touches him, it spreads like wildfire over every inch of him.

That simple, lingering touch that took place in what she affectionately calls the labrary (such an odd one, she is) had tested his limits, the urge to throw her over his shoulder and carry her off to his bedroom almost too great to resist. Would she have screamed at the action, he wonders, or would she have laughed? She does laugh an awful lot, more than a prisoner in his castle ought to, a tinkling sound accompanied by the scrunching of her nose and the slight creasing of her eyes. Her smiles always reach her eyes, an admirable quality. However, considering who he is, he believes a scream would be the more appropriate reaction.

It is dark by the time he canters onto the castle grounds. The mare is tired, and he puts her away in the stable, retrieving a leather satchel from one of the saddlebags.

Once inside the castle, Rumpelstiltskin removes his prize from the satchel. The golden harp, the newest addition to his collection, is truly a work of art. It is smaller than he was led to believe, four hands tall (he catches himself thinking in terms of horses), but that does not subtract from its splendor. The eyes in its feminine face are closed in slumber, though how it managed to fall asleep during the ride is beyond him, considering that it was constantly being jostled about in a saddlebag.

It was one of his more entertaining schemes, he thinks. He could have confronted the ogre himself, of course; he no longer fears ogres, has the power to transform them into statues or chipmunks, or statues of chipmunks, should the fancy strike him. It often does. But he had more pressing matters which required his attention, and the boy had been the perfect means to obtain what he wanted, desperate, brave, and incredibly dense. It had taken some time for him to finally steal the harp, but Rumpelstiltskin was nothing if not patient. He understands better than anyone that the greatest schemes take time to unfold. And the ogre was killed, a bonus.

Upon entering the great hall, he forgets about finding a place to display his acquisition when he spots the tea set sitting on the table. Curiously, it is set for two. A creak near the fireplace startles him, and he whirls around to find his housekeeper fast asleep in his chair, a book about to fall from her hands. He wonders if she waited up for him. Of course she did, the blasted tea is set for two. He hangs the satchel over his shoulder and tucks away the harp as he approaches the slumbering woman. He plucks the book from her slack grip and places it on the table. If he leaves her there, she will surely wake up in the morning stiff, sore, and utterly useless. In order to ensure that she remains in proper condition to go about her duties tomorrow without trouble or complaint, he decides to put her to bed. Gently, he slides an arm beneath her knees and another behind her back. He lifts her from the chair, careful not to wake her as he shifts her weight more comfortably in his arms.

This is much more than a simple touch of the hand. He is cradling this woman against his body, and her fragrance is swirling about his head and that itch is nearly burning in its intensity. He can feel himself coming apart at the seams, his control slipping bit by bit, and he immediately regrets the decision to pick her up.

His last deal involving flesh transpired quite some time ago.

He could magic Belle to her bedroom, but concludes that this would not result in the greatest of outcomes. Inanimate objects can be summoned and transported about by magic without consequence, but the process has an odd effect on living things. It took himself quite some time to acclimatize to the sensation. The first two or ten times he attempted to magic himself somewhere resulted in vomiting (dry heaving once he realized he should not eat beforehand) and a headache that left him reeling, and he had known what to expect after the first test run. His initial try at teleporting another living creature, a rat, led to the poor thing dying immediately when it appeared; its organs had burst. To subject a sleeping woman to such magic would lead to consequences of who-knows-what sort of nature, and he prefers to avoid that messy business altogether.

So, he carries her through the castle, and after climbing a second staircase, his labored breathing is by no means due to fatigue. She stirs, shoulders nudging, head lifting just slightly, and his very breath freezes in his chest as he waits for those eyes to open and discover him. Her hand clutches his shirt, slender fingers curling into the material, her head lowers, cheek resting against his shoulder, and her fidgeting form relaxes once more.

Her breaths, warm and feather soft, caress his neck, and his eyelids slip shut for a moment. He feels that he is practically trembling as his heart pounds away; surely she can feel it. Perhaps it is in his best interest to start incorporating higher collars into his ensemble. However, that is neither here nor there at the moment, and he needs to put down the bundle in his arms as soon as possible.

Quickly, he finds her room and with a nod of his head, flames spring up from the barely glowing embers in the fireplace. Bending over, Rumpelstiltskin untangles her fingers from his shirt and lays his alluring burden on the bed, and a lock of hair falls across her face. Softly, he tucks the tress behind her ear. For a moment, her face scrunches up, a frown marring her features, and he tenses, afraid that she will wake, prepared to teleport the moment her eyes open. However, the tiny creases in her forehead smooth away and her lips curve slightly. He allows his fingers to leave her temple, skim over her cheekbone, and trace her jawline.

The hearth casts flickering, dancing shadows across her face. So beautiful, so soft. The feeling of her smooth skin brings a true smile to his lips despite the intense spike in the prickling that crawls beneath his scales.

He reaches down to pull the coverlet over her, but something catches his eye that makes him freeze. Her skirts have ridden up her legs, exposing bare, pale calves, ankles, and feet. The itch burrows deeper, unbearable, and he tries to fight it, but the urge to touch those ankles conquers him. He grazes his fingertips over her ankle, adds a bit of pressure and strokes just above the bone, curls his fingers and presses his palm to her skin, lets his hand slide up along her calf.

The desire he feels is not just that for her body. He wants Belle.

He wants to touch every part of her, run his hands over every inch of soft, creamy flesh, drag his nails across flushed skin and leave red scratches in their wake. He wants to kiss and taste her throat and shoulders, suck where her pulse thunders the hardest, bite her and leave his mark on her. He wants to press her back into the mattress, hold the smooth contours of her chest to his scales, and watch her face, stare into her eyes, those expressive eyes, and for her to know and accept that it is he who pleasures her, who is intimate with her. He wants to make her sing, moan his name as she clutches at him, rakes her nails down his back. He wants to take away that last vestige of innocence, dominate her, and claim her. He wants to shatter her.

His hand meets the resistance of her undergarments, jarring him, and he blinks away the vision. Too far. He straightens out the hem of her dress, hiding her tempting calves from view. Somehow, luckily, his touches failed to rouse her; odd, he did not peg her as a heavy sleeper.

Rumpelstiltskin's control over magic, his ability to bend and manipulate it to his will, is one developed over centuries, but even his power has its limits. Deals are incredible things, and even he is bound by the magic laced throughout each one he creates. If someone breaks a deal with him, he makes them pay, but if he breaks a deal, the magic makes him pay. All magic, fickle thing that it is, comes with a price, and the price he pays for breaking one of his deals is the reason why he knows his way around a contract so well. His sensual arrangements are all well-constructed deals, in which he promises those courtesies, and his utmost need to avoid the magic's wrath is enough to douse and reign in his carnal desires, prevent the darkness within him from overpowering him and wreaking absolute havoc upon those maidens. He is a monster, and the darkness would have him be one in every way possible if he allowed it to rule him completely.

He has made no such contract with Belle, nor does he plan to do so, and thus there is nothing protecting her from his impulses, from the darkness churning within him that fights to break free, nothing except for his morals and integrity, which are so miniscule that he is surprised he remembers that they exist (do they exist?). To watch her sleeping away, so naïve and oblivious to the danger towering over her, is dizzying. Her innocence wafts up to him, and he can taste it, heavy on his tongue. It is delicious.

If he does not leave, he will devour her.

She breathes a sigh into the pillow, and her lovely lips curve a bit more. The desire to kiss those rosebud lips breathes fire across his scales, just plain hurting now, and oh, he wonders if he is even still trying to resist. He kneels beside the bed, leaning close to her until a hair's breadth is all that separates them. Softly, he ghosts his lips over those rosebuds in the lightest of caresses. His hand tucks another errant strand of hair behind her ear of its own accord.

"I could make you sing," he whispers in her ear, so low that he barely hears the words himself. His mouth is so close to her and it is all that he can do to smother the urge to caress the shell of her ear with his tongue.

As though he uttered the magic word, the forgotten harp in his satchel begins to sing.

Belle's eyes snap open.

He vanishes.

His bedroom is dark and cold, a strong contrast to Belle's. He pulls the still singing harp from his satchel. Its golden eyes are open, its hauntingly beautiful voice ringing clearly throughout the room. He glares at its feminine face, but it continues to sing.

"Shut up," he growls.

At once, its lips press together, and its enchanting tones echo into silence. Those golden eyes stare at him with unease. He flicks his wrist, and as the harp disappears he briefly wonders if it is a living entity. Oh well, let it moan to itself in the great hall.

He sighs. Perhaps the harp's untimely interruption was actually a blessing. If Belle had not woken, he is sure that he would have completely lost his last few remaining threads of self- restraint. With a good amount of distance separating him and Belle, the tendrils of darkness loosen their hold on him; the animal retreats to the back of his mind, curls up, and lies dormant.

The physical effect she has on him, however, lingers.

He strips off his clothes, slides into bed, and works out his frustrations beneath the blankets. Afterward, as he lies on his back, hands behind his head, lust not nearly sated, he stares up at the ceiling. However, he does not see cobweb-covered rafters. His vision is filled with the image of shock-filled periwinkle eyes. They had only been open for a split second, but in that moment he read fear and confusion; he also saw dark lust dancing in those eyes. And yet, she smelled of intoxicating innocence.

Without that scent clouding his senses, Rumpelstiltskin's mind is clear. He feels filthy. Watching her while she sleeps, like some depraved voyeur, touching her, _kissing her_! He has used virgins to satisfy his physical needs as well as the darkness' need to corrupt, bought their last shreds of dignity with favors of the magical variety, but they always consented and signed his contracts of their own free will. This, however…is thievery. He did not buy or bargain for those touches. He stole that kiss. And his stolen prize feels like ashes clinging to his lips.

When he catches her staring at him, her eyes are an open book which he peruses with ease. The message is clear: _I want you to have your wicked way with me_. However, she does not understand what it is that she wishes. If she truly understood her desires, she would not look away when he catches her, but rather step right up to him and speak her mind – such an endearing, infuriating thing she tends to do, standing up to the most powerful being in the enchanted forest and telling him that if would like his caretaker to remain very much alive, for she was liable to freeze to death in that dungeon, then he should give her proper lodgings, or that if he could not decide what type of jam he wanted with breakfast then he would be getting none at all, or that it was terribly inconsiderate of him to track mud on her freshly mopped floors and he had best make sure to remove his shoes next time, thank you very much – instead of performing this absurd dance of ogling and stealing glances.

Her coy behavior in this matter is enough to tell him that despite whatever it is she feels toward him, she is playing with fire that she has no hope of taming and will only burn her in the end. A man may wish to kill his wife, but unless he is heartless, in which case he is either angry, moronic, or misguided, possibly all three, he will experience immediate remorse upon completing the act. Belle is not heartless, but rather the last option. She would mourn the loss of her maidenhood the moment she surrendered it to him. She would regret her actions, just as he knows all of the others have. Her shame however, is something he wishes to avoid. She may be too clumsy for her own good, but she walks with her head held high, and a Belle bereft of dignity is not a Belle that he wishes to meet.

He wonders if, possibly, the dark forces within him call out to her, lure her toward him. Perhaps that is why she looks at him so, with such utter longing. She has no idea that behind his beastly exterior lies an even greater beast, one that rams against the barriers of his mind and would rip her to pieces if given the chance. If she knew truly what sort of monster she serves, she would not wander so close to him.

The violet wisps he left in his wake, which always dissolve immediately, will be the only sign that he was in her room. Perhaps, if he is lucky, she will believe that he was only an illusion, a lingering image from her dreams. What a foolish thought, as if she would dream about him.

He rolls over, clutching the blankets to his chest, and thinks (not for the first time, surely not the last) that his bed is too large for one person. He wants to lie with a woman who will return his caresses, who will look upon his body without flinching, who expects nothing in return for his pleasure but her own. And the one lovely maiden in the entire enchanted forest that might do so, though spirits knows why, manages to enchant and disarm him so completely and unravel his control, without even trying, that he will not dare attempt such a thing with her, not while he can think clearly. To think clearly, he must keep his distance from her, avoid physical contact, lest this dangerous game evolve into something that ruins both of them.

An unbidden memory from two nights ago flashes across his vision, and he finds himself staring into periwinkle eyes that refuse to look away, and he flexes his hand at the sensation of phantom fingertips lingering on his knuckles. _Foolish_ _wishes_, he thinks to himself. He does not require sleep often, but the journey home and following battle of willpower have left him exhausted, and he closes his eyes against the entire discouraging ordeal.

* * *

_Okay, don't get all over me about the fact that he kissed her and nothing happened. At this point, it's lust, not love, so it isn't true love's kiss._


	3. Part III

_I'm sorry this took a bit longer to post, a couple papers and studying for finals had to take precedence. Also, it started to grow to the point where I decided to split it into two separate chapters, so the next one will not take nearly as long to finish._

_To those who said that this is my world and I can have them do whatever I want, thanks for your support. That little note at the end of the last chapter was merely there to clarify why the kiss has no effect on him, that's all, because for Rumpel and Belle at that point it really is only lust._

_Enough of my chattering, enjoy :)_

* * *

The sun is high and glaring when Rumpelstiltskin wakes, chest heaving, cheeks wet, and hands clutching his pillow in a vice grip. Not only does he rarely require sleep, but he also detests it. All that awaited him once slumber claimed him were nightmares of green portals and small hands slipping away, of angry, pain-filled eyes, of broken deals and charges of cowardice. Now, with panic rising in his chest and closing off his throat until he can hardly breathe, he needs to work, needs to feel the wheel turning beneath his hand and pieces of straw sliding between his fingers. He falls out of bed and stumbles about, pulling on whatever pieces of clothing that his shaking hands can grab, hardly seeing anything because that small face so full of disappointment fills his vision.

He practically runs to the great hall, too rattled to even consider the idea of teleporting himself there. As he approaches the entrance to the room, he hears whistling coming from the other side of the door. Belle likes to whistle while she cleans, a habit of which he does not believe she is always aware, but she refrains from doing so when he is spinning at the wheel. She is considerate enough to grant him peace and quiet while he spins, and he expects that the cheerful whistling will stop once the doors open. It does. What he does not anticipate is the sight of his housekeeper perched precariously atop a ladder, dusting the curtains.

She turns at his entrance, raising the duster in acknowledgement, but whatever greeting she had planned dies on her lips, and he glares in response to her questioning gaze. As she resumes her cleaning, the thought that the blue dress she wears suits her nicely briefly flits through his mind, not for the first time, that the color blue suits her in general. She is a bluebird, fond of whistling and sticking her head out of open windows whenever she has the opportunity, as though she intends to fly away. Bae hated being cooped up as well…and that brief moment of calm flickers away as his hands begin to tremble anew.

He sits at the spinning wheel, rests his hand on the familiar wood, and begins to work.

~o~o~o~

Belle tugs on the curtains. They are long, heavy, allow no light whatsoever into the great hall, and simply have to go. A cloud of dust drifts into her eyes and nose as she jerks on the thick fabric, and she sneezes, the force of which nearly sends her toppling off the ladder. In hindsight, wearing heels up here was not the wisest decision.

She glances down at where her master sits, hands slowly turning the wheel and spinning straw into gold thread. His late entrance surprised her, for he never misses his morning tea, which still sits on the table long gone cold, and his earlier agitation – it was not obvious, but she has learned to read his moods more easily than when she first came here – worried her, but he seems to have calmed significantly. She has never seen those hands as gentle as they are when they caress the wheel. The feeling of those hands stroking her calf ghosts over her skin momentarily. Such a strange dream she experienced the previous night, of golden, callused palms gliding across her ankles and calves, journeying beneath her skirts and stopping at the bend of her knee; oh, _why_ stop? Then, strange, ethereal singing, and she woke to find him so close, so close that she could have kissed him. And then he was gone, vanished, leaving behind violet wisps that curled around her face and left her pores tingling. It was so kind of him, gentlemanly really, to bring her to her bedroom. His physical proximity must have influenced her dreams to some extent, and the heat pooling between her thighs only increased as those remnants of magic caressed and whispered over her skin.

Though her clumsiness usually amuses Rumpelstiltskin and has become the main target of his jabs and teasing, he does not laugh at her near fall. Now, he pays her no mind at all. Such is how he is when he takes his place at the wheel, as though the whole world ceases to exist. At first, she assumed the process of turning straw into gold must require great concentration, but as she began to watch him more and more she could see his motions are fluid with ease, as though the activity is second nature. And for that matter, why does he spin so much? She has witnessed him create more gold than anyone could ever hope to spend, and she has only been living in the castle for a few months. He must have stockpiles of gold thread stashed somewhere, or perhaps he transforms it back into straw when the fancy strikes him. She wonders if it is a hobby of sorts, but such a sedentary occupation does not seem to match such a man who is otherwise nearly always in motion.

"Why do you spin so much?" Belle had not meant to speak the question aloud, and when those hands stop at the sound of her voice, she can practically see the fragile walls of serenity he has constructed with each rotation of the wheel shatter and tumble to the floor around him. Guilt attempts to seal her lips; however, the damage is done and her timidity will not rebuild those walls, so she presses on. "Sorry, it's just…you've spun straw into more gold than you could ever spend."

At first, she fears that he will not respond, then, "I like to watch the wheel, helps me forget," he admits, and she wonders if she imagines the slight crack in his voice.

"Forget what?" she inquires. This time, however, he sidesteps her question with a quip and that giggle that is so unique to him. She laughs in return – not only does that laugh no longer make the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, but it brings a smile to her face – shaking her head, and turns back to her task so he can resume his spinning, but his avoidance niggles at the back of her thoughts. She wonders if it has anything to do with what managed to upset him earlier. A conversation for another day, perhaps. No need to pry further when he is obviously reluctant to reveal anything. Such is how it is with him though, needing to coax, prod, and even wrench out serious answers as if they are a dragon's teeth. Rumpelstiltskin is a book whose pages are glued together and whose covers are bound with padlocks for good measure.

Expecting to hear the faint squeaking of the wheel again, the sound of his approaching footsteps surprises her.

"What _are_ you doing?" he asks, stepping up to the ladder.

"Opening these. It's almost spring. We should let some light in," she says. She decides to keep to herself the fact that she really could care less about spring and merely wants to see him in the sunlight more often, that she wants to witness more than just twilight gleaming off of his scales. She wants to see the pink of sunrise, the full-blown gold of midday, and the purple of dusk, and he does not spend near enough time in the labrary for her to observe the full spectrum. Therefore, she has taken up the new task of drawing every curtain in the castle, and her project of organizing the labrary has been put on hold until she is successful in this endeavor.

When another tug fails to budge the drapes, she asks, "What did you do? Nail them down?"

She is merely jesting, but his simple response of, "Yes," is spoken so seriously that she cannot tell whether he too is joking or if he actually did nail the curtains to the molding, which would certainly explain the trouble she is encountering with the stubborn things.

Belle tugs on the drapes again, hears the brief, harsh ripping of fabric, and it gives her an idea. He is standing close to the ladder, attention focused on her, hands wholly unoccupied. A grin flits across her face at this perfect opportunity. If she cannot pull the curtains aside, she supposes that she will simply have to tear them off the rod. And when she falls, because she is oh so clumsy, he will catch her. She takes a deep breath, swallows some bravery, and yanks down hard, throwing her whole body into the motion. Her feet lose purchase on the ladder, and she plummets.

Light streams through the window, floods the room, and she is struck breathless, though not by the fall and subsequent impact of landing in Rumpelstiltskin's arms. The light catches the grey weaving among his scales and turns it silver. Once more, she feels the tingling sensation that the violet wisps left on her face. It whispers along her arms, wriggles beneath her sleeves and bodice to slither down her breasts and stomach. But it is stronger than before, almost a vibration that she can feel in her fingers and cheeks, buzzing low in her ears. It breathes promises of golden hands caressing every part of her, of passionate embraces, and of being thrust into oblivion. The silver shines brighter; she wants to trace it with her fingers. It is so tempting, to reach up and trail the backs of her fingers down his glistening throat.

"Thank you," Belle whispers, and she feels like she is thanking him for more than catching her.

The fingers curled around her side, the wiry arms supporting her, the column of his body pressed to her, every bit of him is warm. His warmth bleeds through their layers of clothing, and she wants to press closer, strip away soft barriers and meld skin with scales. If he is this warm now, she is sure that he would burn her. He already sets a fire within her; all that is left to do is char her skin.

But…something is wrong. His breathing is quick, shallow, and that glistening is not due to only light, but perspiration as well. Strange, she has never before seen him sweat, figured his scales somehow prevented it. And trembling, she can feel him quivering. But most of all, he is looking at her with…fear, so much more apparent than his earlier anxiety.

Without notice, he releases her with a sound of discomfort, lips curled in distaste, and she tries to regain her balance as her feet suddenly hit the floor. He backs away from her like a skittish creature, hands in front of him as if to put a barrier between them, and brushes aside a second expression of gratitude that she mutters awkwardly.

Now, he is the one who looks away first.

~o~o~o~

It hurts. Fairy dust and brimstone, it hurts! Forget tingling and prickling, it feels like needles have been thrust through his skin. Rumpelstiltskin steps away from Belle, needing to put distance between them. It had started as usual, innocence wafting about, itch crawling beneath his scales, and then in one moment it intensified to…something that he would be more than happy to never experience again. It felt like he was literally on fire, and he knows what that feels like, after enough blunders suffered while conjuring flames with a bit too much gusto.

She mentions putting the curtains back up. He halts, turns to her, and says, "There's no need. I'll get used to it." He will get used to it if only to keep her from climbing back up there. She moves to drag the ladder to the next window, and he will not have that, so he sends her off to prepare another pot of tea.

After she leaves, he becomes aware of a very uncomfortable sensation. He feels…damp…everywhere. He looks at the back of his hand to see murky liquid peeking out between the edges of his scales, pushes up his shirtsleeve to observe the effect continuing up his arm, wipes his brow with a conjured handkerchief and stares at the same substance staining the fabric, tinged a dark green. That is not sweat, not that he was expecting such considering he has not perspired in centuries. He licks the fabric.

Blood.

Usually a bad sign.

He knows what happened, though the knowledge does nothing to comfort him. Last night, she had been asleep when he held her. This time, though, she had been awake, and the essence of his desire and magic interacted with her senses, brought forth a new aroma entirely to intertwine with that of innocence: unbridled lust. Such conflicting fragrances should not have mixed well, but it was the most potent, intoxicating aroma he has ever encountered. The curse sensed her longing just as he did, and it reacted, latching onto it; the curse itself is trapped within him, no doubt about that, but it was so desperate to reach her and tried to push outward with such vigor that his blood, where the curse lies, was forced up through his skin to seep out between the edges of his scales. It wants to join with her, corrupt and taint her. It is as though she is physically tearing him apart. Even though he resisted the temptation that literally fell into his hands, which was no easy feat, the curse obviously will not accept his decision to refrain from taking her as his own.

In Belle's absence, he draws every set of curtains in the castle so that she does not need to climb any more ladders; in addition, he pops off to the library and organizes the rest of the books. He swears that the next hobby she decides to take up will be one that keeps her on the ground, like gardening. Yes, perhaps he should give her free reign of the overgrown mess of a garden. It will keep her from mucking up the air in the castle with her feminine purity as much as she does now. The bluebird can stretch her wings. After a quick rinse in his washroom – he could not stand another moment of the ichor clinging to his scales – and a change of clothes, he returns to the dining room just before she does with the tea. When she catches sight of all the windows uncovered, she beams, and he cannot remember the last time someone graced him with that sort of expression; he tells himself that it is the sunlight streaming through the windows that warms him.

He does not hide the ladders, for that would be childish, but they should no longer pose a threat since she has no more need of them. No more climbing, no more falling, no more catching, no more holding.

As she hands him his teacup, chipped as always, Rumpelstiltskin is careful to avoid touching her and she visibly frowns as he awkwardly maneuvers around her fingers. The loss of her smile is unfortunate; however, he cannot risk the curse acting against him in such a manner again. There can be no more touching whatsoever.

"The garden is in terrible condition," he says. Glancing over at Belle, he sees her raise a brow in question. "You might as well fix that up while you're getting at everything else."

"More work?" she sighs, though her eyes twinkle.

"If you'd prefer to scrub the dungeons instead, be my guest. A bit of sun may do you some good though. A waxen complexion doesn't suit you, dearie." His words are hollow in his chest, for she looks just as lovely as she did when he first laid eyes on her.

Rumpelstiltskin sips his tea, itching to run.

~o~o~o~

A month. He has been avoiding her for a month. Belle knows that he is avoiding her, for even when she did not seek out his company, she still at least ran into him now and then. This though, this is absolutely ridiculous. Her serving his meals now consists of leaving them on the table in the great hall and returning an hour later to collect the empty dishes – well, they are only empty about half the time, the man forgets to eat without a firm nudge every once in a while – and he even takes his tea in private now, which means that she does too, unfortunately. She had enjoyed taking tea with him, for it had been a guaranteed bit of company each day. Sometimes they spoke and sometimes they did not, but it did not matter; their silences had become comfortable.

Books are nice companions (now she reads in her spare time not taken up by gardening instead of arranging the mysteriously organized labrary), but they do not listen to her little stories of discoveries made while cleaning, nor do they tease or offer bon mots in return. Sometimes when she enters the great hall, the spinning wheel is turning, though her employer is nowhere to be seen. One time when she was carrying a basket of freshly laundered clothing to the west wing, which is where Rumpelstiltskin's private chambers are located, she heard his footfalls against the hardwood up ahead around the corner. However, when she rounded the bend, all that awaited her was the sight of violet wisps dissolving into the air. She almost threw down the basket in her arms out of frustration.

She spends much time outside on the castle grounds, perhaps more than she should, reveling in the fresh air and the sun enveloping her. Unless she plans on dealing with patches of unruly brambles – on which occasions she borrows a pair of her master's boots that she discovered in the scullery – she forgoes shoes and stockings when she gardens, enjoys the feeling of her fingers and toes curling into rich, brown loam. Of course, she makes sure to wipe off her feet before going back inside, for she is wholly against dirtying her clean floors. She even brings a book with her at times and lies reading in the grass. Whenever she works in a plot near the tower which holds the labrary, the hairs on the back off her neck stand on end, and she just knows that she is being watched. However, every time she chances a glance up at the windows, she sees nothing.

It is as though she lives with a ghost. A ghost that is avoiding her.

And it hurts, more than it should. At first, Belle wanted to interact with the man as little as possible, for he made her skin crawl, and not in the rather pleasant manner she had been experiencing as of late. Co-existence was all she foresaw in their future. She is a terrible clairvoyant, however, for after enough time loneliness became an even less favored companion. And now, now she _misses_ his company, his silent yet familiar presence at the spinning wheel, his good-natured banter, even his staring. So, the fact that he is now deliberately evading her when she actually wants to spend time in his presence, and books – which once took up every moment of free time she had and on which she believed she could solely survive – are not a satisfactory substitute, that he has taken away the thrill that books once gave her and offers nothing in return, well…it angers her.

She decides to spite him while performing of her chores. While laundering his clothing, she discovers a shirt that is much too torn to mend, a lost cause really, absolutely no way of salvaging the garment. At night, she pulls the shirt over her shoulders, relishing in the feel of amber silk sliding across her skin, and falls asleep comforted by the scent of herbs mixed with the tang of metal and an undertone of musk and hay that caresses her neck. If he notices the absence of his shirt, he says nothing, which does not surprise her. He would rather hide away than confront her about pilfered clothing, and she does not even know what she did to provoke this hiding.

She cleans the mirrors, every single one, well, aside from any that exist within the west wing, from which she is banned. She has desired to see those chambers, but that is where he holes himself up for most of the time and he would surely discover her presence should she dare to venture inside; he had snapped at her with such ire when she merely suggested cleaning the west wing that she has not considered disobeying that order. He forbade her from lifting away the dusty coverings on the looking-glasses, but she no longer heeds that order, confident that her master is not keeping tabs on her often enough to catch her. She assumes that the foible originates from his aversion of his reflection. She wonders if he even knows what he looks like anymore if he has kept the mirrors covered since before she came here, for years most likely. The lack of mirrors was at first a hindrance as she prepared herself in the mornings, for even the one in her room, a small hand mirror that she discovered in her nightstand drawer, was wrapped in a piece of cloth, but Rumpelstiltskin became her looking-glass, quick to tease her bedraggled appearance or tell her when her hair resembled a bird's nest.

Now, she makes due with the hand mirror (it now rests uncovered on the nightstand, for he never enters her room and thus will not see it), which does not provide nearly as playful commentary, or any commentary at all for that matter.

~o~o~o~

A month. He has been avoiding her for a month. They have been playing the longest game of hide and seek of which Rumpelstiltskin has ever heard. Well, he has been hiding, avoiding Belle like the plague; he amends that thought: he has been avoiding her like humans avoid the plague (he rather likes plagues, enjoys walking amongst the masses of the dying, for dying souls are desperate ones). And she has been just as restless as one in her pursuit of him. He is safe for the most part during the day, only having to worry about chance encounters, but later, when she is finished with her duties, the hunt begins.

She spends at least an hour running about the castle, checking his usual haunts. It is not as though he is actually worried that she will find him, for he can quickly disappear as soon as he senses her, but it does mean that he has to remain on constant alert. She has taken to walking about without shoes so that she makes less noise, a sly move, one for which he commends her., though it does reduce his advantage. A few times she has managed to sneak closer to him than he cares to admit, so he is must constantly be listening for even the tiniest creak of a floorboard or click of a door latch. Tension winds him tighter and tighter with each passing day.

No longer can he look over ledgers in the labrary after supper, as had been a bit of a hobby for him (they say one should keep one's personal and business life separate, but for him business and pleasure have always gone hand in hand) because that is to where she retreats after giving up the chase, and she stays there until nightfall and fatigue bring her to her bedroom.

He spends numerous hours examining ancient tomes in the seclusion of his private chambers for an answer of how to rectify his predicament, besides the obvious, but discovers nothing. Any information he finds considering the Dark One are only bits of speculation, nothing that delves near deep enough to be useful in the least. Unfortunately, none of the previous Dark Ones ever decided to write a user's manual. And really, to call him or anyone else the Dark One, for that matter, is inaccurate. He, just like all the others before him, is merely a shell, a host for the true Dark One, a thing composed of pure darkness, to live off of. That, he learned from a little girl whose curiosity unleashed every evil into the world, the Dark One included. Why it chose to inhabit a kris upon achieving freedom is beyond him. Everything he knows of his curse and power he has had to learn himself, and he realizes this will be no different.

When Belle finishes the laundry, she brings a basket of the clean clothes to the west wing and sets it down in front of the door. Before, only a brisk rap on the door would alert him of the delivery if he was in, and then she would leave to complete her other duties. Now, however, she stands at the door knocking for a full ten minutes straight, with requests of, "Pease come out," which turn into, "Come out of there, you fool," thrown in every now and then along with, "I know you can hear me," and, "Stop this immature behavior," ending with the inevitable "You can't stay in there forever!" and a growl of frustration. He stands just on the other side of the door the entire time, only emerging after her stomping footsteps fade into silence.

Rumpelstiltskin, the most powerful being in all the land, is hiding in his chambers from his housekeeper. He would find the situation hysterical if it were not his own, but as it is his own there is nothing funny about it at all, but rather wretched and pathetic. Going stir crazy in the west wing, he leaves the castle for longer periods of time, looking for desperate souls instead of waiting for someone to request his help and hoping to find a virgin that he can use to rid himself of this damn desire. Luck is not on his side, unfortunately.

He never thought he would see the day when a bluebird would hunt a snake, when the snake becomes prey instead of predator. The bluebird has become a falcon, he thinks, and this is one transformation in which his magic played no part.

He does not avoid her in the strictest sense of the word; he avoids her gaze, her notice. However, he does not wholly deprive himself of her presence. He watches her from cracked open doorways or from the labrary window when she is gardening below. Sometimes, he sits outside her bedroom at night when he knows that she is asleep, but treading into the room would be another matter entirely; he can no longer trust himself around her sleeping form, one which would surely be clad in only a thin chemise, and if the firelight caught her at just the right angle he could observe much more than entirely acceptable. When dawn arrives along with the faint rustling of bed sheets, he leaves. As long as he keeps his distance, he can quell his desires.

Belle has taken to humming and singing while she cleans instead of whistling, from hymns to drinking songs that he has no idea how she knows. Sometimes she dances, hips swaying to the tempo of her words or soft humming. She will tie up her skirt just above her knees, and those white calves bend and twist in ways that belie her usual clumsiness. At times, she abandons her current task and waltzes with an invisible partner, twirling about the room with eyes closed and a smile gracing her face that lifts his mood. In these moments, she exudes a grace befitting her station, not as a housekeeper, but as the daughter of a lord. He has to tighten his hold on the edge of the doorframe in order to stop himself from sliding into the room and taking the place of her ghostly consort, to have her smile at him, because he _misses_ making her smile. And when she merely sways and rolls her hips, he wants to rest his hands on those alluring hips and move with her her. Dances from behind of another sort come to mind, but no; snakes do not lie with birds. They eat them. They silently slither behind the unsuspecting creatures and strike without warning. Her back is turned, oblivious, and he could sweep her off her prancing feet, strike and strike her until her innocence turns to dust, if he so desired. And he does. He wants to wrap his arms around her and squeeze, hold her so tightly to him that not a bit of space separates their bodies and —

And it is when his thoughts gain momentum along this track that Rumpelstiltskin leaves, or when she turns to nearly discover his lurking presence, whichever comes first. It is usually the former.

While he has not experienced the intense stinging and burning from before, that itch it still present. However, over the weeks he acclimatizes to it, or at least disregards it as best as he can, for he dislikes staying away from her even more. That idea bothers him, and he decides not to investigate it further. Being the coward that he is though, he will not face her and risk another painful encounter, and neither will he accept the simple remedy for his condition. He can deal with this, and he will not subject her to such things in order to find his own comfort. It is odd, he thinks, that he no longer sees her as simply another pawn to be used to satisfy his own goals and desires, a first for him.

Try as he might, he cannot figure out when or how that managed to happen.

* * *

_In case anyone is wondering what a kris is, I was perusing Wikipedia for any knives or daggers in mythology, because I enjoy throwing mythology into stuff like this, and I came upon the kris. It is a type of dagger from Indonesia, famous for its distinctive wavy blade (when I saw the picture I was like holy shit, uncanny much?), that is believed to have magical properties. Both a weapon and spiritual object, krises are often considered to have an essence or presence, considered almost alive because they may be vessels of spirits, either good or evil. So in my mind Rumpelstiltskin's knife is a kris._


	4. Part IV

_So, I was a bit disheartened because the last chapter didn't get as much feedback as the first two, so I hope that people are still liking the story. And if you're not, then please tell me what I can do to make it better. Constructive criticism is very much appreciated. To those who did review/favorite, thank you so much. Well, here we go, I hope you enjoy :)_

* * *

Belle wakes one morning to find a note on her pillow:

_Leaving for a few days. No need to wait up. Shall let you know when I return._

She crumples the piece of parchment in her fist and tosses it into the fireplace, but it does not obtain the same effect it would if there were actual flames in the hearth. No matter, it will burn to ashes at some point. Despite her quick discarding of the note, she does think upon the message. Though she has seen barely a glimpse of Rumpelstiltskin lately, and she has fought for those glimpses, she knows that he has made several excursions away from the castle, business and all that, by things like straight days of untouched meals and the basketful of clean clothing still sitting outside the west wing. So, the fact that he thought to inform her this time must mean that he will be gone for quite some time.

Over a week passes.

Belle has yet to encounter any notice of his return, whether it be another note or him appearing beside her and sweeping her into a hug. _Foolish wishes_, she thinks to herself, a wry smile curling her lips. She clutches a newly mended shirt to her chest, one which she had set aside quite a while ago and forgotten about until today, as she stands in front of the entryway to the west wing.

Boredom has plagued her these past several days with most of her duties unrequired, no clothing to launder, no meals to prepare, no straw to fetch, only a quick dusting of the main rooms necessary. She can only garden so much before she gets the feeling that she is bothering her plants. She has been talking to them an awful lot, after all, because they say that talking to one's plants will help them grow and she has no one else to talk to, so they have been on the receiving end of every single one of her ramblings and one-sided conversations as of late. Besides, she has developed a sunburn on her neck that she would truly prefer not to aggravate any further. And, so that she does not exhaust her limited supply of reading material too quickly, she has restricted herself to one book per day. Needless to say, she has too much time on her hands.

Belle has taken to wandering the numerous halls and rooms of the castle, searching. This castle is so old that it surely must hold a number of secrets; a trapdoor beneath an overlooked rug, a statue that when moved or a floorboard or flagstone that when stepped on opens a secret passageway, a sconce that when relieved of its torch will cause a hidden spring to rotate the wall, even a false back in wardrobe, there must be something. If her master could see her, he would surely say that all those books have gone to her head. Well, no, he would not say that, for he would not see her, for he is hiding from her like a damned coward. Every day, during her wanderings, she has found an excuse to approach the doors to the west wing, where she paces and paces with indecision gnawing at her breast until she turns away and seeks refuge from her own shame in her allotted book. Such mystery surrounds those doors, the allure of discovery and the unknown, but she cannot bring herself to open them. Rumpelstiltskin's cowardice must be catching, she thinks, if she cannot summon the nerve to take a peek into his private chambers while he is without a doubt gone from the estate.

She presses a hand to her bodice, where a crinkled piece of paper is tucked beneath it. The note never did curl up in flames and burn to ashes; those seventeen – she counted – small, jagged words are the only ones that he has bestowed upon her since this hiding began, and she will not relinquish them. He wrote that he would let her know when he returned, and as of yet he has done no such thing. Rumpelstiltskin is many things, but a liar is not one of them. He has not yet come home.

Belle steels herself, makes a decision. She will investigate the west wing, brave the so-called beast's lair. After depositing the shirt in the full laundry basket, she presses down on the door latch, wincing at the click that seems to echo throughout the empty corridor. She squeezes through the partially-opened doorway and closes the door as quietly as possible, and she shakes her head at her paranoia. Rumpelstiltskin is gone, far away, and he will not discover her in his chambers. She takes a few steps back from the door, bumps into a table, and whirls around to steady a rocking vase. Stealthy, she is not. She breathes a sigh of relief, for her employer is incredibly observant and a missing vase would surely alert him to her intrusion. When she leaves, everything must be just as she found it.

As she wanders through the rooms, her worry melts away to be replaced by the curiosity that propelled her inside. She is appalled by the sheer amount of clutter. In terms of furniture, the wing is sparsely decorated, but books cover nearly every surface, even patches of the floor, some stacked so high that she imagines they must be enchanted so as not to topple, others opened to reveal pages full of odd symbols that she has never before seen.

The curtains are all drawn in the west wing, heavy fabric blocking out every single ray of sunlight. Sconces bring a dim illumination to the corridors. Belle's hands are itching to tear the drapes down, but she knows that she cannot leave behind any sign of her presence. The sunlight has done her wonders these past several weeks, and it pains her to think that he has been hiding in such darkness. One door opens to a larder stocked with jars filled with the oddest items she has ever seen, which she assumes he uses to concoct his many potions. Some jars are labeled, but most are not, and she squints to read his jagged script. Of the ones she can decipher, there is deathknell, a purple flower that emits grey smoke, fire stool, which appears to be an orange sort of mushroom, ice wraith teeth, which fittingly resemble icicles, even a heart that apparently once belonged to a werewolf.

Another door leads to what she assumes is his bedroom, if the bed is any indication. The moment she steps inside, she immediately feels a shift in the atmosphere; the air is heavier, thick, almost stifling, with magic; this is obviously where he spends most of his time. The room is larger than hers, but it too is crowded with stacks of ancient-looking tomes. There must be at least as many books in this wing as in the labrary, if not more, but she does not understand why he keeps them in here. The walls and ceiling are covered in designs of tiny wings. The sets of wings are tinged different colors, ranging through shades of green, blue, purple, pink, and continuing through the spectrum, no two sets of wings bearing the exact same coloring. As she draws nearer to a wall to inspect the artwork more closely, she realizes that the wings resemble those of fairies, and she wonders at the odd choice of design for her master, the sinister Dark One. She reaches out to run her fingers over the webbing of a wing, so intricate and lifelike, and cries out in shock as she touches not paint but the filmy surface of an actual fairy wing, quickly retracting her hand. They are real, these hundreds of wings that belonged to hundreds of fairies.

Belle backs away from the wall, effectively more unnerved than she has ever been before during her time in the Dark Castle, until the backs of her legs bump into something. She turns around to behold his bed. The bed is not as extravagant as Belle's, which has a canopy and more blankets and pillows than for which she cares. It is large, certainly, but with a simple oak frame and covered by a quilt, almost rustic in style. She brushes her hands over the quilt. She bites her lip, the opportunity too good to pass up, and she climbs atop the bed. Burying her face in a feather pillow, she inhales that scent that is uniquely Rumpelstiltskin which faintly clings to the fabric. The shirt she stole lost his scent long ago, so she revels in the aroma of her master, burrowing beneath the quilt to surround herself with it. A sudden thought crosses her mind: in all the time that she has been laundering Rumpelstiltskin's clothing, she has never washed nightclothes of any sort. This is not the first time such an observation has crossed her mind, but the implications of such now bring a furious blush to her cheeks. His scales, all of them, have rubbed against these blankets, and she wraps them more tightly around her body. As she curls into the quilt, she is suddenly overcome by the need to cry. This, lying in his bed, his most private place, where he sleeps, in the closest and most intimate she will ever come to being with him, and it is not enough.

This needs to end.

Belle has ventured deep into the dragon's den, with its columns of ancient tomes and its walls of death, and she will wait for his return even if he breathes fire in his fury at finding an intruder. However, suppose the knowledge of this invasion of his chambers leads to him withdrawing from her even further, if that is possible. No, waiting for him is not the way to rectify the situation. She pulls the note from her bodice to read it, just as she has done countless times over the past week. He will let her know when he returns, and unless he chooses to do so with another note, she will confront him then, she will demand an explanation, and she will put an end to this foolish behavior. Confidence filling her bosom, she sits up and slides off of the bed, prepared to find a book and patiently await her master's return.

She moves to tuck the note back into her bodice, but it slips from her fingers and falls to the floor, sliding beneath a wardrobe. She kneels on the hardwood, peers beneath the wardrobe, and reaches for the note, but something else catches her eye: a hinge bolted to the wall. Quickly snatching the piece of parchment, she then retracts her hand and stands. She presses her cheek to the wall to peer behind the wardrobe, and low and behold there is a small door. Curiosity and excitement flare within her, for this is exactly the sort of things that she has sought. Belle wastes no time in sliding the wardrobe out of the way and she is breathing heavily when the heavy piece of furniture no longer blocks the door. She kneels in front of it, for it is so tiny that it does not even reach her waist. The first thing the notices is a line of odd runes etched into the wood down the left edge of the door; the second is that there is no doorknob, but rather a small ring of metal embedded in the wood. She sticks her finger through the ring and pulls. At first, the door will not budge, but then a strange sensation washes over her, almost like fingers are prodding inside of her head, shuffling and sliding bits and pieces around as though looking for something. Then, the phantom hands withdraw, and the strange runes flare with a golden light. She barely tugs on the metal ring, and the door swings open.

All that lies inside the space is a cedar chest. Gently, she pulls it from the closet to sit in front of her. The craftsmanship is exquisite. The legs of the chest are carved to resemble hooves, and spaced along the entire bottom edge are images of a lamb depicted in different poses and at different angles. A large image of a lamb lying down in grass is carved into the lid of the chest. She runs her fingers over the smooth carvings, so lifelike that she almost expects the creature to leap off of the wood. Those same strange symbols are etched into the lid as well. When she tucks her fingers under the lip of the lid, the phantom fingers return and these runes glow just as the first set did.

She opens the chest to find several articles of clothing. She picks up a garment and unrolls it to discover a tunic, and another turns out to be a pair of trousers. The fabric is coarse, the sort to be worn by peasants. However, what is truly strange about the garments is that they are…small. Rumpelstiltskin does not seem the type to keep a memento from his childhood. She wonders if he even remembers his childhood, considering how long he has existed; she has no idea how long that is exactly, but the name Rumpelstiltskin has been passed down in rumors and legends for generations. As the story goes, her great grandmother eight generations (or was it nine?) before her made a deal with him for a child, so her family, which can thank him for its existence, has been dealing with him for over a century and a half at least. The garments are too large to have belonged to a child that he acquired in a contract; she knows that he prefers to deal in newborns. Though she has never seen any babes in the castle, before this hiding began she would sometimes smell talcum powder about his person. So...to whom could the clothing have belonged? A child that managed to remain with him past infancy? A son? A…a son?

As she unrolls another tunic, something clatters to the floor. Her eyes widen at the sight of the strange knife, the intricate lettering which spells out her master's name on the blade, and all of the curiosity that previously filled her immediately vanishes. It is a beautifully-crafted piece, but instinctively, she does not want to touch it. Call it intuition, but she feels that nothing good can come from this weapon. However, if she does not put it back, her master will know of her treachery.

She reaches down and curls her fingers around the hilt of the dagger, only to fling it back into the chest with a shout of pain as smoke rises from her palm and fingers, all blackened as though burned, and a high-pitched shriek rings furiously in her ears.

And she wishes that Rumpelstiltskin were here, because he is powerful and she feels safe when he is home.

~o~o~o~

Rumpelstiltskin's latest excursion has been extremely successful, not in terms of business, but rather as a way of lifting his mood. Most of the week is spent lurking outside Her Majesty's palace, spooking and playing tricks of increasing magnitude on her imbecilic guards until paranoia leads them to murdering each other, and oh is that entertaining. Their fear is far more delectable than the finest wine, and he has not laughed so hard in ages, especially when the witch herself appears to investigate the rather shrill cries of the last one to fall, whose limbs were ripped off one by one by hooks composed of violet wisps. He may have forgotten to mention that the last one standing earned the honor of facing the Dark One himself, but ah well. It was not as though the fool stood a chance either way.

As his giggling finally comes to an end, he composes himself and in a moment he is standing behind Her Majesty. He leans against a tower and watches her kick at the motionless guards, a growl issuing from her throat.

"Good help is so hard to find these days, don't you agree?" he asks. At the sound of his voice, she whirls around in a flurry of ridiculous skirts, her face a mask of fury. Her hair is mussed, lips a tad swollen. Curious.

"Of course you would be behind this," she snaps.

"Oh, calm down. I've done you a favor." He nudges one of the bodies with the toe of his boot. "They obviously weren't very bright."

She sighs and throws her hair over her shoulder. "Don't you have better things to do?"

He does. He should be at the Dark Castle. When he left for this excursion, he did so with the full intent on confronting Belle upon his return. He has yet to return only because he has yet to decide what such an encounter will entail. Her Majesty, however, does not need to know of such things, so he chooses to ignore the question.

Instead, he asks, "Are you angry with me?" with false shame coloring his words.

Placing a hand on her hip, she approaches him and reaches up to trail a hand down his shoulder. Aside from Belle, she is the only person in all the land who does not shy away from him, who is brave enough to touch him. Neither one fears him nearly as much as she should; Her Majesty is simply arrogant, while Belle…he does not wish for her to fear him and has given her no reason to do so. He suppresses a shudder, one not born of the same discomfort that Belle's touch invokes; the witch simply repulses him. She smells unclean, not like his Belle, lovely and pure. Her Majesty reeks of sex and…something canine. Oh, he interrupted something, how marvelous. No wonder she is in such a foul mood, well, more foul than usual.

She smiles a venomous smile, white teeth gleaming, while her cold eyes bore into him. "Of course not," she says. "They were foolish enough to fall for your tricks. As you said, they obviously weren't very bright. That sort of incompetence is useless to me."

Her insults are subpar today. She is obviously not at her best, truly a pity. Still, any day that he manages to get under her skin is a good one in his books. His enjoyment at such success, however, is cut off by the sensation of icy claws clamping over his chest, his heart, and he feels the sudden compulsion to return home. He needs to return to the castle at once. He does not let his apprehension show though, and he takes a step back with arms spread wide and a grin playing about on his face.

"As riveting as this conversation is, dearie, I'm afraid that I must be off. Places to go, deals to make, you know me."

Before she can reply, he disappears.

In the castle, he hears doors slamming up ahead. The west wing, someone is in the west wing. He starts forward to confront the intruder, ready to unleash a torrent of curses upon them, magic sparking at his fingertips, when Belle comes barreling around the corner and slams into him. Upon reflex, he grabs her wrist, and she screams, slapping him away. Her eyes, filled with pain and tears, never before has he seen such an expression of anguish on her face. To see her so upset, it shifts something loose inside of him, and he wants to find the cause of her misery and rip it to bloody scraps with his bare hands. Before he can grab her again, she goes flying down the corridor as though a beast is chasing at her heels.

Something frightened, possibly harmed, his Belle, something in the west wing. He investigates the rooms in order to dispel it from the castle before it can cause anymore damage. However, nothing seems out of place, at least until he reaches his bedroom, which is very much altered from the state in which he left it. Wardrobe moved, closet and chest open, bed covers rumpled (what was she _doing_ in here?).

The charms on both the door and chest were bypassed, which cannot be done if the possible bypasser harbors ill feelings toward the caster or wishes to harm him. Only a friend, or at least someone without ill intent, can get past those enchantments. Belle is the only person in all the land who knows of him and does not harbor ill feelings toward him; he has managed to acquire quite the number of enemies over the years.

He approaches the chest and kneels in front of it. How long has it been, he wonders, since he last looked at his son's belongings? The articles of clothing have been haphazardly tossed inside (the nerve of that woman) and he lifts them out with gentle, trembling hands to refold them. He removed a tunic, uncovering the knife, from which a wisp of smoke rises.

Belle.

She touched the knife.

Long ago, he imbued the dagger with his darkness, the essence of the Dark One, a trap for any who sought to control him. To touch the knife releases the affliction, the darkness, inside the foolish soul, but without the power and consciousness of the Dark One that prevents it from destroying its host. It will wreak havoc from within the body, inflicting torture and slowly draining it of its warmth, its light, its life, until all that remains is darkness, and then comes inevitable death. This is not mere speculation or theories on what should happen. He is no fool; he has tested the curse. An old, bed-ridden man suffering from a pox asked for death, so Rumpelstiltskin wrapped the man's gnarled fingers around the hilt and gave him what he desired. He should have asked for a merciful death, but old age and illness can dull the mind and bring about a lack of specificity. He would have been better of letting the pox have its way with him.

Rumpelstiltskin created it simply as a means to ensure he remains the host of the Dark One until he can craft that curse to end all curses. Now, however, with Her Majesty constantly trying to outdo him, a part of him almost hopes that she will one day manage to get her hands on his kris, for the affliction will end even her miserable existence. And there is no cure, no counter curse to save the plagued soul. Well, there is, but he is the only one who wields it. The cure is being the Dark One, for the darkness has no effect on one who wields the correct power to keep it in check, so if he were to release the affliction on himself (entirely possible, for he created the hex to activate for anyone, no exceptions), it would have no effect. And could he cure someone foolish enough to release the darkness upon his or herself? Perhaps, but he has never before had to find out.

Until now, if his hunch is correct. Fortunately, Belle is not old, nor is she suffering from a pox, so her body should hopefully put up a greater resistance to the curse. _Un_fortunately, that _is_ mere speculation.

He sets the room to rights first, for he will not leave such precious things out in the open. The moment the wardrobe is back in its proper place, he is standing in front of Belle's door. He moves to knock on the door, but his hand freezes just before connecting with the wood when he hears a low moan come from within the room. It comes again, drawn out and full of pain, not a comforting sign. Forgoing pleasantries, he attempts to enter the room only to find it locked. Belle never locks her door, a quirk brought on by some trust she has that no monsters will harm her here – she obviously has forgotten who she serves – so the fact that it is locked means that whatever frightened her had a greater impact on her than he realized.

The latch unfastens with a flourish of his hand, and he steps inside the dark room, peering into the shadows to see a lump beneath the heavy blankets of her bed. A sniffle reaches his ear, and he brushes away the misery it carries with trepidation. The room reeks of magic, his magic. The fragrance of her innocence, her purity, is…tainted, similar to the sickly sweet scent that accompanies rotting corpses. It nearly suffocates Rumpelstiltskin as he draws nearer to the bed and pulls away the blankets.

Belle's face is ashen, her veins a dark blue shade that stands out against the pallid tone of her skin. Her eyes, dark around the edges, widen at the sight of him.

It is as he feared.

"Y-you're back," she whispers. He says nothing, simply continuing to study her appearance. His silence must discourage her, for she bites her lip and looks away. "I…I've missed you," she murmurs. The sincerity in her voice stuns him, and if he is honest with himself, it warms him.

Belle tries to sit up, grimaces in pain, and he places a hand on her shoulder to stop her. She quickly gives in, slouching back into the pillows, and looks up at him questioningly.

"You look a mess, dearie," he says. An understatement, but he does not wish to alarm her.

The faint smile that flits across her face in response to the term of endearment, for that is what it is when directed at her, surprises him. Or, perhaps she finds humor in the statement. Either way, he has made her smile again.

"I'm sure that I feel worse." She closes her eyes as a tremor passes through her body, eliciting another groan. She bites her lip again, smile gone. "I-I was in the west wing, and I touched a knife, and-and I'm sorry, I was just —"

He holds up a hand, and she immediately shrinks back, fear coloring her features. Fear. She is afraid of him. She expects to be punished for her actions.

She will be.

"I know. Don't worry, we'll fix you up." He turns to leave.

"No," she gasps out, hand feebly clutching his sleeve, "please don't leave me." She fears punishment, yet the prospect of being left alone frightens her even more. He gently pries her fingers loose and holds her hand in his, eyeing the dark singes on her white skin and ignoring the prickling in his hand.

"I won't be long, dearie."

That is the last fully coherent conversation that Rumpelstiltskin shares with Belle, for by the time he returns with the necessary items, she is only capable of forcing out clipped phrases between clenched teeth.

Every spell that he believes could even remotely help Belle's condition he tries, but they either have no effect or cause her even more pain when they interact with the darkness. It is one thing to heal cuts and bruises, but this is on an entirely different tier, one with which he has not experimented in depth. Only one enchantment, old magic that for which even he had to delve into his more ancient texts to find, has any success, and all it manages to do is slow down the rate at which the curse operates. He concocts brews of every sort to try to eliminate the growing darkness within her from the inside, and tonics to soothe her pain, all of which she swallows with grimaces and groans (these comprise the majority of her vocal faculties). Some she manages to keep down, but most her body rejects, and her vomit is the shade of tarnished emeralds and burns through the bucket provided for her; he enchants the next one to withstand anything she upheaves. The tonics that she keeps down provide some temporary relief, but it never lasts long enough, and none of the potions do anything to eradicate the source of her pain.

In her worst moments, she screams of burning, that her blood is on fire. She will clutch at the blankets, writhing, caught in the throes of agony, eyes spinning like those of a cornered mustang, as though she is a woman possessed. The first time it happened, she clawed at her own arm until she struck liquid onyx, trying to get the boiling blood out. He had gone to collect more herbs while she slept, the effect of a potion because she can no longer fall asleep on her own, and he returned to find her covered in her own blood and screaming, begging him to make the burning stop. He held her down until the episode passed, forced her to take another sleeping draught, and stitched her up with magic, no scar to be seen. There is nothing to remind her of the incident, but he will never forget that image of her, crazed and covered in blood. A simple enchantment on her fingernails makes sure that he never relives that moment. She often cries out for her mother, who he knows is long dead, and begs the scaly demon (himself, he is certain) to take away the hot coals he put inside her. He fears that her mind is wasting away just as her body is. He does not leave her side for longer than five minutes now, ten after she takes a sleeping draught.

Every so often, Rumpelstiltskin envies mortals and their ability to drink until inebriation leaves them clueless to the world surrounding them. One of the perks of his curse is that no disease or poison can kill him. Any illness he contracts will affect him much in the same way, with a headache, general soreness, possibly a scratchy throat; the Dark One takes care of the more unpleasant symptoms, and any poison he ingests is quickly filtered out of his blood by the Dark One as well. Parasites like to insure that their hosts live, and his just happens to be incredibly clever in that regard. Of course, he has spent every moment of his cursed existence as sober as a rock due to this, which is truly a thorn in his side at the moment.

He sits in front of the fireplace, a flask clutched in his hand that only serves to burn his throat and make his eyes water. The discomfort is as much of a distraction as he can provide for himself, for he cannot spin at the moment. His nerves are so shot that all he managed to do was tangle everything beyond salvation, and he is so utterly drained that what little straw actually made it through the spindle came out as mere iron thread.

Belle is dying. What ails her has progressed to the point that he fears she will be unable to endure much more. Nothing he can think of works, only manages to stall its effects. He feels powerless, something he vowed he would never be again. Weak, impotent, useless, the list continues to grow, and he takes another draw from the flask.

He originally wanted to punish Belle for her snooping, her absolute disregard for both his orders and his privacy, but she has suffered enough. She is paying the price for her curiosity, curiosity that he knew that she possessed. Guilt pools inside his stomach. If he had been here, instead of running, this could have easily been prevented. He should have known that her inquisitive nature would get the better of her, that she would investigate the west wing just as she has done the rest of the castle. He should have been here to protect her. The only thing from which she needs protection is him, him and this blasted curse. A second failure in protecting those in his care.

He hurls the flask into the fire, and the resulting blast goes unheeded as he buries his face in his hands and moans.

She is his maid, for spirit's sake! He has killed previous maids without a second thought, looked at their blood on his boots without a bit of remorse, so this should be no different. He should not be wearing himself to the point of nearly collapsing in order to save this woman. He walks, even dances, amongst the dying without an inkling of care about their plights. He giggles at others' sufferings, but all he wishes is for hers to end. Pawns are expendable, used as diversions and easily sacrificed, missed by no one once they have played their part and lie dead. Belle, however, has made is across the board and become a queen, and now he will do whatever it takes to protect her. He will not fail her.

Only once he smells singeing hair does he raise his head to see smoke rising from a few of his tresses. As he presses out the tiny flames with his fingertips he realizes that the explosion was a bit larger than he first thought. He jerks his head up as the first echo of Belle's screams reaches him, and he magics himself to her bedroom just as she throws off the duvet, revealing a sight that freezes him in his tracks. Her skin has a bluish tint to it, lips nearly purple, veins undeniably black, and she shivers violently, all the while crying that she is burning; the curse is hot in her blood, has robbed her of her life, her warmth, taken it for itself and left her freezing. When she opens her eyes, they are black in their entirety, and he knows that the darkness has completely consumed her.

Rumpelstiltskin raises the flames as high as possible without spilling from the hearth to burn everything to cinders, and soon the room is sweltering. A conjured bottle appears in his fist with a swirl of smoke, and his grip is so tight that he can feel the the container about to shatter. He takes a deep breath, for panic will do nothing to aid him. He may not provide the greatest bedside manner, but he will not crumble now when Belle needs him. Sitting beside her on the edge of the bed, he forces her into a sitting position. Normally, he would wait out this fit until she quieted and he could attend her with minimal fuss. Now, however, waiting is not an option.

Time has run out.

* * *

_I told myself that I wouldn't have any cliffhangers, and there I go leaving you guys with one. Forgive me, and please review :)_


	5. Part V

_Just a quick note because I know you're all dying to find out what happened next after I left you with such en evil cliffie…you guys totally blew me away with your feedback. I feel so loved, or rather, my story feels loved, so thank you so much! Enjoy, dearies :)_

* * *

Regina sits at her vanity, listening, fascinated. The only view that the mirror on the other side of the connection usually offers her is that of a ceiling; however, tonight is another story. She is accustomed to spying on the girl, because, well, she has no other options. When her reflective servant first alerted her that one of the mirrors in the Dark Castle had been uncovered, she had been deeply intrigued, for Rumpelstiltskin, fully aware of her power, never exposes his mirrors. To find herself staring at the image of a girl, wiping down the surface of the looking glass, was a surprise to say the least. Regina tracked her progress throughout the castle with each mirror she undraped to clean, surmising that she was a maid of some sort, surely a prisoner. After all, no sane soul would reside within the Dark Castle of her own free will.

Because the connection with this mirror rarely shows her more than a ceiling, and when the view does change she can see that it is kept within what appears to be the girl's bedroom, she commanded her informant to notify her whenever he hears voices coming from said looking glass. The first time he appeared flustered and, spirits, _blushing_, with news that he could hear noises coming from the room, she did not take the time to inquire as to his discomfort and consequently found herself listening to badly stifled moans and hiccups and whispers of a name that should never be uttered along with such wanton sounds. She simply cannot fathom why out of all the names she could possibly whisper with such fervency she would whisper _his_. The notion that she is not actually sane at all crossed Regina's mind; however, as amusing as that idea was, the girl seemed to have her wits fully about her at all other times. Strange.

However, things changed. The girl groaned and screamed in pain more often than not, and Rumpelstiltskin's voice could be heard frequently, muttering comments such as, "Don't drink so quickly. You've had barely any luck keeping things down as it is without your impatience mucking things up," and, "Hurry, sit up. Take the bucket, quickly, or at least lean over the —"

The latter was promptly followed by the sickening sound of retching and an exasperated sigh.

Regina soon came to the conclusion that some sort of illness has befallen the girl, and her thoughts were confirmed when at last the mirror moved, shakily, to show her entirely altered visage. Her ghastly pale features, tinged blue and marked with veins and eyes black as sin, stared at the mirror with consternation, as though frightened by her own reflection. Then, her face scrunched up, and the mirror was tucked behind a mattress (not completely, for Regina still retained a partial view of the girl lying in bed) as she released an agony-laced wail. The master of the castle appeared just before she threw the duvet off of her body, effectively covering the mirror with the fabric.

Now, Regina sits, listening intently and waiting for the scene to unveil itself.

~o~o~o~

Rumpelstiltskin holds the mouth of the bottle to Belle's lips, but she presses them together and turns her face away. He tries to pry open her mouth, fingers pressed to skin as cold as death, (a horribly inappropriate simile, or appropriate depending on your sense of humor – at the moment, Rumpelstiltskin's has abandoned him – considering the situation), but she is stubborn, pushing at him and turning her head this way and that.

"Belle, stop fighting," he murmurs in her ear, forcing down the panic that mingles with his words. "Please, love, drink this." It this how powerless he has become, that he must resort to _pleases _and_ begging_?

He finally wrenches apart her jaws and tips the contents of the bottle into her mouth, then clamps her mouth shut and holds it closed so that she cannot spit out the potion. Eventually, she swallows, with tears streaming down her face and waves of fear and confusion rolling off of her. He hates that deep down a part of him enjoys her fear, that his mouth twitches with mirth at the sight of her tears, that a giggle is rising in his throat as her pain washes over him, and he banishes that piece to the deepest recesses of his mind that he can. Belle has enough darkness with which to contend without adding his to the situation. Moments pass, precious moments of which Belle has a limited number, but her violent shivering continues, her teeth chattering loudly.

Nothing.

A tonic made from bottled fire has no effect whatsoever.

An idea hits him, but it is one that Rumpelstiltskin is loath to attempt. However, he has run out of options, run out of time, and if he does not act now then he will lose Belle to his own blasted magic and cowardice. Damn the consequences, he will accept whatever comes of his next actions. He decides that it is time to make a trade: his warmth for…oh, she not dying will do nicely.

He quickly strips off his and Belle's clothing, and he thanks the spirits for her delirium as he climbs into bed with her and pulls the duvet over them both. She fights him when he pulls her into an embrace, twisting and squirming, but he will not relinquish his hold, effectively trapping her arms against her sides.

"No, d-d-don't t-touch m-me! It h-hurts, oh, it hurts!" she cries, teeth clicking. "Leave m-m-me alone, d-demon! Oh, let me g-g-go!" Of course, that would be the most coherent thing that she has uttered in days.

When she begins bucking against him, he wraps his legs around hers, presses himself to her until not a bit of space separates their bodies, and her fierce movements soon dwindle in their intensity. She is a strong girl, but the curse has drained her and left her significantly weakened. Her body goes slack, resigned, and when her form trembles with the force of fresh sobs he tucks her head beneath his chin, letting her moan into his chest as her tears wet his scales.

Needles thrust through his skin and fire breathes across his scales, but he forces himself to block out the pain. Clutching her form to him, he wills his warmth to seep into her, from his skin to hers. The darkness may be able to eat up potions, even powerful ones, without consequence, but his magic is something that it cannot so easily dispel, and so it fights against him, just as it has every time before that he tried using a spell to cure Belle. She cries out, tensing, but he cannot afford to be kind to her now, and he forces his warmth into her, unrelenting, driving the darkness back. He can feel a great chill enveloping him, his body temperature dropping, as well as more than just warmth seeping between his scales, but no matter, he continues to give Belle everything of which he is capable until her violent shivers eventually subside and all that shakes her are her sobs. Fear and confusion continue to roll off of her in waves, and he gently runs a hand through her tangled locks while murmuring soft words of comfort and apologies. At some point, she wriggles a bit so that her face is burrowed in the crook of his neck.

_Well, this is what you wanted._

To lie in bed with her, to hold her close, without a bit of space separating their bodies, yes, Rumpelstiltskin wanted that. However, such fantasies did not include her weeping and miserable and _dying_. His fingers rub little circles over her back, her skin so soft and thankfully warm…for now.

The sobbing reduces to mere sniffling, and then her breathing steadies, and she sighs. Slowly, she pulls away just enough so that she can look at him, her nose barely brushing his. Her eyes – the darkness in them has receded only slightly, but enough that he can see her irises – are glossy, clouded with illness, and she gives him a sad little smile, like she knows that this is only a temporary fix, that it will only stave off her inevitable death, and she is apologizing for it, which makes him hold her tighter. She wrinkles her nose.

"Your breath smells horrible," she whispers, and in one swift movement, she presses her lips to his. They are petal soft and warm and sweet, and spirits, they are insistent. His eyes slip shut at the caress, and though he is rusty (centuries without such activity will do that), he responds in-kind. He decides that this will be her price, this delirium-induced kiss, – she has no power over whether or not she lives, but this she can give him – a fee that she will not even remember paying. Her mind is addled, weakened and twisted by malady. She does not know up from down at the moment, and he doubts that she even knows who he is, considering that she had been calling him a demon only moments ago (he did not peg her the type to voluntarily kiss a demon). He shudders and gives a low moan, and she slips her tongue past his lips.

His eyes snap open, and he wants to jerk away because she tastes like magic, sharp and toxic and absolutely sinful; she tastes wrong. However, he sucks on her tongue until the darkness coats his own and he swallows it down like bitter poison. She is Belle, and he will make her taste the way that his Belle should, sweet and innocent. Hands coming up to frame her face, he needs to kiss her harder, deeper, and he plunders her mouth without restraint, drawing the darkness out of her bit by acidic bit. It fights him, resists, but he forces it up and into his own body, because it is _his_ magic and _he_ controls it and this is _his_ queen and he will _not_ lose her to it. She sighs into his mouth, shifts to move her trapped arms, and reaches around him to clutch at him and drag her nails down his back. He gasps at the sensation, for it feels incredible despite the brief sting as her nails catch two or three of his scales at an odd angle and cause them to flake off, and she smiles against his lips.

He breaks away, only for need of air, and her face is smudged with dark green when he runs a hand down her throat, fingers splayed across skin that is now less pallid, veins more blue than black. She nuzzles his neck, kissing and nibbling her way down to his collarbone, and her touches incite the carnal part of him that he has sought to suppress, unleashing his desire and shattering the shackles that reign in the beast. A kiss is not enough, not nearly enough.

He needs more.

Shifting their position so that he is towering above her, his other hand slides down her body to grip her backside, and she responds by wrapping a leg around his waist. Her tongue dips into the hollow of his throat, and for a moment he forgets how to breathe. Pulling Belle up from her ministrations, he crushes his mouth against hers once more, twisting his fingers in her hair and using his teeth perhaps a bit more than strictly necessary. She still tastes wrong, but the coppery savor dripping from her mouth is delectable as he draws the remaining darkness from her willing lips. As the last drop, mixed with the coppery tang of her blood, passes from her mouth to his, he grits his teeth against the fire that winds through his veins; it will come to pass soon enough as the Dark One brings the darkness beneath its influence once more. That sickly sweetness evaporates, leaving the heady aroma of Belle's desire and purity to tantalize his senses. It prods and strokes places that only serve to further ignite the burning desire He yearns to take that innocence and turn it to dust in his hands.

He drags his tongue up the valley between her breasts, smirking internally when she throws her head back against the pillows, and continues up her chest and to her neck where her pulse is thundering beneath the surface, and he sucks and bites _hard_. And spirits, she is _rubbing_ against him, pelvis grinding, and something about that must feel wonderful for her because she is practically purring; her touches send him spiraling, strip him of any rational thought that still manages to cling to him, and leave them both at the mercy of his desire, his need, to dominate and claim her as his own. The hand wrapped in her tresses moves down to caress a different set of curls, and as he presses his palm to the sheer warmth she now emits, fingers skittering along damp folds, her hips buck in response. Her enthusiasm draws a chuckle from his lips. Pressing himself to her wet heat, he prepares to pound into her with animalistic fury, because she is _his_ queen and he plans to let her know that.

"Rumpelstiltskin," she moans, voice hitching, and there goes that forgetting how to breathe again. No one, not even his wife, has ever before uttered his name with such ardor, like a…like a lover. Those four syllables sound divine as they tumble from her lips, and they shake him from the haze of carnality shrouding his mind.

He pulls away from the column of her throat to stare down at Belle. Her hair is tousled, lips red and swollen – the bottom one is indeed bleeding, such a lovely crimson shade – face flushed, bosom heaving, and he thinks that she has never looked more beautiful, features alight with rapture. And her eyes, such lust swirling in their periwinkle depths, along with other things that send him reeling: trust (he knows that expression well, shown on the faces of those too naïve to consider his trickery), and a spark that cannot identify (possibly affection, but going so long without any human or creature bestowing such a thing upon him leaves him unsure) but which fills him with a warmth he has not felt in centuries. To do this, now, when she is so vulnerable, still delirious for all he knows, would be one of the most monstrous acts he has ever completed.

Rumpelstiltskin cannot do this to her.

At once, he attempts to reel in the beast and set shackles upon it, which is so _very_ difficult with Belle pressed up to him the way she is, so he forces himself to pull away from her. Her lips cover his again, adamant, but he withdraws from her advances, though it pains him to do so, literally, especially when a tiny whimper breaks from her throat. He would like nothing more than to completely ravage her, the urge stronger than ever before, for the beast within has felt her naked form pressed to his, her heated kisses and fiery caress, but he has taken his kiss and he will _not_ steal her innocence. The beast snarls and pounds against the mental barriers he quickly tries to rebuild, and Rumpelstiltskin knows that he is too weak to resist for much longer. For days he has been pushing himself nonstop, in terms of both his magic and body. He may not need to sleep often, but four days without rest or food – she often did need to remind him to eat, at times nearly forced to physically pull him away from his work, though he always conceded before she could or pacified her with promises to eat later (she quickly learned to make him specify exactly when "later" was) – is pushing it even for him, and now he is finally feeling the effects of such behavior. To create even iron thread would be a miracle right now, with how utterly drained he is.

So, he blows into the palm of his hand and covers those lovely, trusting, eyes, lightly dragging his hand down to reveal closed lids; her arms and leg drop to the bed. She will sleep, and without the curse creating havoc within her, she will sleep long and peacefully, believing this all to be a dream fabricated by malady. He brushes a thumb over her bottom lip, and the broken skin mends itself; the discoloration on her neck, already violet, receives the same treatment, leaving creamy, unblemished skin. A shame really, that he cannot leave his mark upon her. With his last bit of ebbing strength, he magics himself to his own bed, and he holds onto consciousness long enough to lament the utter lack of Belle in his arms.

~o~o~o~

Disgusting.

Regina finally turns away from the mirror.

It was one thing to listen to that girl's private moans, and it would have been another to merely hear the sounds of shifting blankets and ragged sighs with two very distinct tones, but it was _another_ entirely to actually witness the whole sordid affair, compelled by some twisted sort of fascination to continue watching and utterly unable to look away no matter how much she wished to. When that girl called out his name, with such passion, Regina shuddered and again considered that she may be less than perfectly sane. However, despite the certainty that such images shall remain branded into her mind for eternity, her spying has resulted in something positive. That look on Rumple's face, shocked and, if she did not know any better, scared – the idea of the infamous Dark One scared by a girl – was absolutely priceless.

A wave of her hand and the image in the mirror of that girl (what did he call her? Belle?), sleeping soundly with the most ridiculous of smiles upon her face, dissipates to be replaced by her own frowning reflection.

_Please_? _Love_? She must mean quite a lot to Rumple for him to bestow such language upon her. The implications of such are not comforting. The Dark One, who has performed such evils and ruined so many lives, with a chance at love, at true happiness? No, Regina will not allow it.

Smoke swirls in the looking glass, and the face of the trapped once-genie appears, his features carrying the same revulsion. Obviously, he heard them as well. "Quite the odd turn of events, don't you think?" He pauses, brow furrowing. "You're plotting something."

She smirks. "Of course I am. Nobody messes with me without receiving a bit of retaliation."

Not even the Dark One.

If he cares for that little thing, then he cannot be nearly as heartless as he would lead everyone to believe. He has a heart, and any heart has the potential to be broken and crushed into dust. Emotions and love are a weakness, one which Regina plans to exploit to the greatest extent. She will rip the thing for which he cares the most (well, _person_, at least) from his hands, from his life, and she will be able to lay the blame at his feet. She understands the imp more than he would ever admit, knows that he is nothing more than a thrall to power, and that when it comes down to it, not even a beauty such as that can lure him away from it. He has revealed a crack in his façade, and she will shove a knife into that crack until it becomes a rift that shatters him and leaves him a broken man.

~o~o~o~

For the first time in what feels like an eternity, Belle opens her eyes to clearly see her room, vision no longer shrouded by a dark veil of constantly shifting shadows, and there is silence. That awful shrieking has finally subsided, always echoing in her head and sounding so much like (she shudders) her mother's final cries as she lied on her deathbed. At times during her sickness, she would feel a touch on her shoulder, her cheek, against her back, and sometimes a hand would hold hers and squeeze tight. In these moments, the shadows would whirl and dash about, much more frantic than their usual shifting, and bits of orange light would peek between the shadows along with flashes of golden scales. The shrieking would grow shriller, though fainter, almost warbling, and she could hear a low voice murmuring, barely audible, words incomprehensible, and really all that she could think was that the voice should be higher in pitch, though she knew not why.

Actually, this is the second time she has gazed about without the shadows hovering in her vision. The first was when the horrible burning and shrieking faded away completely and she found herself in the warm embrace of Rumpelstiltskin; however, she only recalls flickering images of a dream, nothing more, and while it is not the first that she has had of such a nature (certainly not the last), it is surely the most realistic one she has had to date.

Pulling the duvet off of her body, she finds that she is naked, which is not a surprise. She recalls throwing off her negligee several times, actually, which means that it somehow managed to find its way back onto her body, strange; perhaps her memories are not quite as reliable as she would like to believe. She also notices that her skin is speckled with dark green, viscous liquid, a stark contrast to her fair complexion, and splotches have rubbed off on the blanket. She rubs a bit between her thumb and forefinger, sniffs it. The coppery tang that reaches her nose is unexpected, very odd.

She draws herself a bath in the adjoining washroom. One thing that she certainly enjoys about living in a sorcerer's home is that there is a never-ending supply of hot water, and this thing he calls indoor plumbing is an absolute marvel.

She sinks into the water and a hiss escapes her lips as a dull pain along her thighs makes itself known. Peering into the water, she finds no cuts or wounds of any sort on her body, but the skin over her thighs is certainly agitated, pink and tender to the touch, as though rubbed raw. The view is quickly obscured by swirls of emerald green, so she runs her fingertips over the tender skin, trying to feel some sort of nick or scratch. Her eyes slip shut as the sensation of scales lightly scraping where her fingers touch ghosts along her inner thighs. She recalls that the scales did indeed grow softer along his stomach, but lower…they were rough, hard, and they created such delicious friction.

Her eyes snap open. Coincidental. Must be a rash of some sort, an aftereffect of whatever it was that ailed her. The knife…what ailed her came from the knife. Exactly what the knife is, or its significance (it must be important to be hidden away with such care), is unknown to her, but since the blasted thing put her in such a state she believes that she deserves to have those questions answered, along with others that have been piling atop one another since she came to live in the Dark Castle, such as why he wanted her here in the first place. As she sinks deeper into the hot water, until only her head remains above the surface, the explanation to that one comes to her.

Her master is a magpie, always coveting some new addition to his collection of precious things, the contents of which she knows quite well, having dusted them often. To think that she actually forgot why she is here in the first place, not the fact that she was traded for the safety of her village, of her family and friends (she will never forget that), but why she was the chosen price. It was because she was _something_ _a bit more special_, something precious that he wished to possess. Once she entered the walls of the Dark Castle, she became nothing more than part of his collection, a mere bauble, albeit one not meant to simply sit upon a shelf or be displayed (if she'd dusted herself along with the rest of his pieces, she might have remembered that), but still only one of the many spoils he has reaped from countless deals. Just one of the many valuable things he has managed to take from desperate souls; however, an object is only precious to those to whom the object holds significance. The objects that he keeps in the cabinet in the great hall do not seem to hold any significance to him, and the ones scattered throughout the room on displays seem to be nothing more than trophies. No, the spinning wheel is the only piece that she can say with certainty holds any true value to him. She was treasured by her father, not Rumpelstiltskin, and it was only in her father's estate that she was cherished. Though, due to recent events, Belle is willing to believe that such is no longer true. His conduct with her person has been just as careful as that with which he handles his treasured spinning wheel.

He uses language to manipulate others, and though he never lies, his words have a tendency to dance about the truth. When listening to him speak, one must carefully pick out the meaning behind his speech, read between the lines. For a man like him, actions speak louder than words, despite the fact that he can be quite verbose when trying to complete a transaction (that dealing with the boy may not necessarily have been the first one upon which she managed to eavesdrop). If she were not so accustomed to her master's quirks, so perceptive of his demeanor, she would assume that he did not allow her to die – though she knows not how bad her condition was, the term "dire" frequently flashes amongst her thoughts – simply because he would then be short a caretaker. However, she has seen that of which his magic is capable, knowing that what she has witnessed is only a tiny fraction of the true extent of his power, and it would be a simple feat for him to clean the entire castle with naught but a wave of his hand, a point which also leads her to doubt that he chose her for any other reason than to add to his collection; a caretaker was only an added bonus. And in each and every moment that she can clearly remember of her illness (they are few, unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, if the unpleasantness of what she can recall is any indicator), Rumpelstiltskin was there by her side, dedicating his time and efforts to cure her of her affliction, and that speaks louder than anything else. He…cares for her.

Belle is not presumptuous. In fact, never before would she have entertained that idea, especially with his attempts to avoid her at all costs. That behavior will certainly be dealt with if she has anything to say about it, which she does. He once watched her from afar, scrutinized his newest prize with those unrelenting eyes. Perhaps it is time to remind him why he chose her in the first place, that she is something special, something to be appreciated, though not ignored like a doll upon a shelf. As she stands up in the cooling water, her audacity surprises her, for she always wanted to be brave, but never before has she felt such confidence.

She dries herself, wiping away any lingering bits of the green fluid, and opens her wardrobe to select a dress. Her choices are few, but no matter, she already knows which one she will wear. Once, before this ridiculous disruption in their living situation, he had remarked offhandedly that blue did not look nearly as awful on her as other colors, which, coming from him, was like saying she was the most beautiful woman at the ball. So, blue it is.

Once she finishes dressing, she picks up her hand mirror (he said that the room and everything within it belongs to her, so she likes to think in terms of "hers") and nearly blanches. Well, this is what over a month of solitude will do to a girl, she thinks, with no one to impress and all that – not that she was previously trying to impress Rumpelstiltskin, of course not, banish the thought – followed by spirits knows how many days of illness. Maquillage would certainly help. Unfortunately, no mirrors meant that she could not apply cosmetics with any precision, she felt embarrassed merely at the idea of asking her employer for them, and it was not as though she was going out and about, so there really was no need for such indulgences.

She bites her lips in order to redden them, a trick that she learned as a child when her mother would not allow her to wear makeup, and when she releases them, satisfied with their shade, a brief feeling of nipping teeth ghosts over them. Shaking off the sensation, she tries to ignore the images flashing behind her eyes; it is terribly rude of her dreams to taunt her so while she is awake. Back to the task at hand, her eyes are another matter. She looks about the room, and the flames in the hearth catch her eye. Unorthodox, but it could work. She brushes some ashes into the shovel by the fireplace and dips her finger in the ashes. Holding up mirror once more, she glides her finger over her eyelid, blinking away the bits that cling to her eyelashes, and finds the effect to be acceptable. With the other lid adequately, well, ashified, she smiles. Actually, considering her illness, she looks much better than she would expect; not pasty in the face, just tired. The bath may have helped, but she still feels an ache and lethargy in her muscles. No matter, she cannot crawl back into bed. Speaking of beds…

She returns to her bed to strip it of its coverings. They are absolutely filthy, covered in smudges of that green substance and whatever else her body decided to deposit on them during her days of sickness. Actually, she has no idea how long she lied there, wrapped up in her own little world of pain and shadows. She pulls the duvet onto the floor, wiping the ash from her fingers onto it, and reaches for the sheet when her hand freezes in midair. There, lying on the sheet, are three flecks of gold. Slowly, she picks one up with careful fingers and brings it close to her face. It is a scale.

No longer can she deny the low whispers humming at the back of her thoughts: it was no dream.

She blushes.

And then she grins.

After depositing the scales into the drawer of her nightstand for safekeeping, she gathers the dirtied bedding in her arms and brings it to the scullery. Though she plans to give it a thorough washing later, she doubts that it can be salvaged.

In the kitchen, she goes about preparing tea, a lighthearted whistle passing between her lips, and she is smiling. She is smiling because she is determined. Her shoes clack against the hardwood floors, a sound she had been without for quite some time. Really, she went about this the wrong way. How she thought she would outdo her master with sneaking, when she is as graceful as an ox and he is, well, Rumpelstiltskin, was a great lapse in judgment on her part. No more sneaking. She has tried the direct approach before as well, but banging on the doors to the west wing and yelling at him was a horrible idea. Honestly, she might as well have been saying, "Well, I'd like it very much if you were to come out of there, but since you forbade me from entering the west wing and I won't dare go against your orders, I can't actually force you to do anything, so, really, just go on about your business." She was playing this game wholeheartedly, but she made the mistake of playing by his rules, ones which only work in his favor. Well, hang the rules. One way or another, she will mend the bridge between them that he has attempted to burn, get her answers, and…well, that is as far as she has gotten.

The doors to the great hall open and she catches a brief glimpse of Rumpelstiltskin sitting in front of the fire before he detects her presence and disappears in a swirl of violet smoke. She nearly stamps her foot at his childishness, because that is what he is, a child, one that can level whole cities, end wars, and turn her into a newt if he so desires. That thought reminds her of the power of the being that she is about to confront, and for a moment she wavers in her decision. No, she has acted bravely before, and she shall do so once again, this time with actual courage backing her.

She sets down the tea set on the table, but instead of leaving, as usual, she strolls over to the Golden Fleece on one of the many displays scattered about the room and runs her fingertips over the strangely warm material. Holding the edges of the pelt, she rubs her cheek against it and smiles into its softness. The thought of bringing her gardening sheers to the fleece is rather tempting, but he does not cherish the item near enough for that to produce the necessary reaction. It will take something drastic.

Light glints out of the corner of her eye, and she looks up to see sunlight reflecting off of the blade of what Belle decided long ago is an axe of some sort, though certainly of a foreign design she cannot place. Glancing about the room, her eyes flit over each display until they rest upon the spinning wheel. If she is correct, and she is quite confident that she is, he would be quite adverse to any harm befalling it.

Hang the rules.

"Rumpelstiltskin," she calls, "come back here this instant."

It does not surprise her when her command elicits no response whatsoever. Still, she is not discouraged, nor is she one to give up easily. She approaches the strange axe and gently lifts it from its display. Adjusting her grip, she shifts the weight of the weapon in her hands.

It is time to lure the dragon out of hiding once and for all.

~o~o~o~

Rumpelstiltskin braces himself against his desk in the labrary, immediately regretting the decision to leave the great hall in such a manner. He feels wretched. Magic can do much, but it cannot bring life to the dead, and Belle had been so close to perishing. Death had its claws wrapped around her, prepared to rip her away from the world of the living and drag her down to the underworld, but Rumpelstiltskin spirited her away just before she crossed that threshold. Death does not like to be cheated, and now he is paying for his interference. His strength has yet to fully return, or even mostly, and a headache is raging behind his eyes. He winces as the sound of his name echoes in his head, reverberating throughout his skull, and pulls at him, tugs like a string.

Well, this is new.

Names are important things, his especially. To call Rumpelstiltskin, or rather, the Dark One, by name opens a link, through which he can hear the desperate soul's pleas and wishes no matter how far away he is. However, there must be intent behind the utterance for the link to form, for his magic understands the difference between a summons and a name murmured in gossip or complaint. He is not required to answer the call, and he can close the connection whenever he chooses, for as long as the knife is in his possession he is controlled by no one, his own master (hers as well), and that will never change, so the fact that Belle dares to try to command him is amusing.

"Rumpelstiltskin," oh, _must_ she shout? "the tea is getting cold. If you wish to partake in it before it cools completely, I suggest you hurry." A pause, then she adds, "And I know that you can hear me," a bit more bite in her words than there has been previously.

He pulls his chair away from the desk and wearily sinks into it, resting his head on the desk.

"This is your last chance," she says, tone warning yet almost unconcerned, as though she does not expect him to take her seriously, as though her words are only meant to taunt. Why she chooses today of all days to harass him is simply beyond him, but his patience is already brittle thin and ready to snap.

"Very well." She sighs, and he cannot help but grin at her quick surrender. "If you won't come out on your own, then I suppose I have no choice." He lifts his head at the odd edge in her voice, but such a long bout of silence follows that he begins to think she may have abandoned the one-sided conversation. He is about to sever the link when she says something that truly catches his attention:

"I propose a deal." Ah, there it is, that cause for such confidence. He wonders what exactly it is that she hopes to offer him. She has but one thing to her name, and should she suggest such a bargain, in his current state he does not think he could refuse.

"If you come here, and if you listen to what I have to say and stay until my business with you is complete, I'll not chop your spinning wheel into kindling." Her words are chosen carefully, he can tell, for she has spent enough time in his home to know that when making a deal one's wording must be specific. There is an audible smirk in her voice. Belle does not smirk. She smiles and she laughs, but she does not smirk, which leads him to wonder at this change. It troubles Rumpelstiltskin almost more than the meaning of her words; almost, but not quite.

She would not dare…

Her persistence is admirable, as are her methods. He did not think her the type to take a hostage, but obviously he underestimated her. On any other day, when he does not feel like something a dragon decided to regurgitate halfway through digesting, he would applaud her cunning. Or perhaps it is because she chose this moment, when he cannot simply transport the spinning wheel to another part of the castle – at least, he _will_ not, because if he wishes to put himself to rights as quickly as possible, he cannot keep depleting what little strength and magic he has left – that he should commend her tactics. Not that she could possibly know of his current condition; no, this is all luck on her part.

There are several ways in which to coax an animal out of hiding. One is leaving food outside its chosen place of refuge in hopes that it will seek it out. Another is stealing one of the animal's offspring in its absence and waiting for the poor thing's cries to lure it out into the open. When the hunter's patience expires, the option of smoking the creature out of its den presents itself. Belle has yet to set fire to the Dark Castle (purposefully, a least), but she has moved onto the second approach and the last thing he needs it her setting the curtains on fire to get his attention.

Running is something at which he is quite adept, better than most. However, he does tire of it, and he knows, deep down, that he cannot keep this up forever, especially if this turn of events is any indication. If he is honest with himself, which for the most part he tries not to be, he knew that from the start.

* * *

_You know, when I started writing this thing, I never intended anything to happen other than that lovely kiss we see in Skin Deep. Of course, that idea sort of went out the window in part II, and now I'm trying to figure out exactly where everything went wrong. I'm not ashamed, mind you, but my boyfriend won't stop teasing me because I just couldn't resist writing some Rumbelle smut…gah. Incidentally, this is actually the first smut I've ever posted on the site. So yay me lol._

_Hope you enjoyed :)_


	6. Part VI

_Okay, so I'm really sorry about the wait. I felt that a lot of things in this bit were going wonky, and then classes got in the way, and I ran out of steam, and blah blah blah. You're not here for excuses, you're here for the story. I pushed myself to finish this chapter, which was originally only the first half of the whole bit, so that I could post_ something_ and let you know that I'm still here._

* * *

Rumpelstiltskin cranes his head around to look at his alchemy station, where his newest concoction sits bubbling in a beaker. In all the weeks of hiding from his caretaker and trying to find a solution to his aggravating predicament, that potion is the result of his efforts. It is not a cure, no, nothing as fantastic as that, but it should provide a temporary remedy for the problem, at least until he discovers something better.

He stands and approaches the table, murmuring a quick, "One moment, dearie," and her responding gasp of surprise tells him she was unaware of the two-way connection. Holding his hand above the beaker, he checks if it has reached the proper temperature. The white mist that envelopes his fingers is not steam, if the film of ice that crackles along his skin is any indication. The idea came to him when he was watching Belle work in the kitchen (it has become one of his favorite things to do in the mornings). She was baking bread and forgot to put on her mitts before reaching into the oven. This, of course, resulted in a burned hand and several choice expletives that, much like the drinking songs, made him raise a brow. She scurried over to one of the cupboards and retrieved a small jar filled with a poultice he had prepared for her, for that burn was certainly not the first that she had received in the kitchen and he had grown tired of watching her walk about the castle with bandaged hands. The poultice healed her burn, but first it numbed her skin so that the repairing of it would not be felt. His magic heals, yes, but the sensation is by no means pleasant.

He decided that if he could numb her skin, then why could he not do the same for himself? Of course, this mixture was a bit more complicated, considering that he planned on creating that effect from the inside out. Numb his insides, numb the Dark One senseless, and it should be unable to detect Belle's emanations so easily. There is nothing actually dangerous about the potion, nothing toxic, and if his calculations are correct, it should work quickly enough that the curse has no chance to filter out the tonic before it falls under its effects, if it tries at all. Of course, this is all theory. It seems as though he is running on nothing more than theories nowadays, not exactly the best way to keep one's life held together. Well, if he cannot put a jam in the Dark One's senses, this will at least dull his own so that he does not feel the discomfort that Belle's presence creates.

This brew is the entire reason for his most recent excursion. Because the mixture must be rather potent, as the Dark One is nothing to sneeze at, he ran out of ice wraith teeth, his supply of which had already been low. So, off to the Niflheim Mountains he went, where nothing except the blasted wraiths could survive, save a few select clans of jötnar that managed to adapt to the environment over the centuries, growing thick, white fur that made them damn near impossible to see in the whirling snow. The entire ordeal had been awful in every single way, and by the time he replenished his supply the world had three less jötnar in it and the wraiths would be whispering his name in terror for years to come…if they could whisper at all. He really does not know how those things communicate, aside from a screeching that sounds like shards of broken glass scraping against one another; very well, they will screech his name in terror. The fun at Her Majesty's palace was simply a way for him to unwind after such a trying adventure.

He shakes the bits of ice from his hand, decides that the mixture is complete, and transfers it to a flask, a new one, considering that his last one perished in the great hall's fireplace. This confrontation has been long in coming and was actually delayed by Belle's curiosity and ensuing illness. He had originally planned on finishing the potion the moment he returned home, which was why he had assured her contact in that note; unfortunately, with his lovely caretaker trying to die and whatnot, he did not have time to do so. When he managed to drag himself to the labrary that morning, he added the last bits of teeth and set the potion to simmer.

One experimental sip teaches him exactly how quick and potent the effects of the potion are, leaving his mouth and throat numb, an iciness pooling in his stomach. He flexes his free hand, but the movement barely registers, the pull of muscle and the crack of his knuckles that he hears so faint, almost nonexistent. As for the flask in his other hand, no longer can he feel the intricate engravings in the metal, but the container is only a dull weight barely registering against his fingers. A few tentative steps show odd results, for his motor skills have not diminished, such as when one's leg falls asleep and the limb fails to respond; however, again he can only just feel the pull of muscle, and the sensation of his feet descending to the floor is completely absent, so each time they hit hardwood is a bit jarring. As long as he can see what he is doing, he can watch where he must aim his steps, everything should go swimmingly.

Now to see if this has had any actual effect on the darkness within.

Rumpelstiltskin strolls into the great hall, albeit slowly, hands clasped behind his back, to find Belle standing beside the spinning wheel, arms raised and ready to bring his scythe crashing down upon it. A sliver of hope had resided within him that she was only bluffing, that she was not truly prepared to turn his spinning wheel into kindling; alas, hope is a foolish thing. She has finally caught him, so a new game begins. A new game means new rules. The problem is that he does not know what game they are playing now, and consequently he does not know the rules. One must always understand the rules before making one's first move, otherwise one risks making a mistake that will cost the entire game.

She visibly frowns when her eyes alight on the flask clutched in his hand. What right has she to frown, he wonders, when he is the one whose property is being threatened?

He crosses his arms over his chest. "What do you think you're doing, dearie?"

"What it takes to get an audience with the infamous Rumpelstiltskin, which is apparently this," she says, giving the scythe a small shake for emphasis.

"Well, here I am. State your…_business_." That she used such terms is surprising. However, it shows that she understands his ways, his language of deals, and he cannot begrudge her for approaching this in the same manner which he would. This is a hostage negotiation, nothing more than business…tricky, delicate business.

"I want some answers."

"Oh, so I'm the one who's to do the talking?" He holds a hand to his chest, fingers pressing harder than usual because at first he cannot feel the material of his waistcoat. "I thought _you_ had something to say to _me_."

"I do, but that can wait."

Her stance does not change, though her arms tremble slightly due to the weight of the weapon. It would be only too easy to swipe it from her hands, to conjure it away and leave nothing more than smoke sifting between her fingers, if he did not wish to avoid the repercussions of such an action, that is. That, or he could leap upon her, take her by surprise, easy prey when she is burdened down by a weapon she can hardly lift. Yet, at the moment he is nowhere near coordinated enough to attempt such a feat. He can't feel anything, and yet when he does move his limbs are heavy, as they though still know how exhausted he is. Oh, she truly picked the worst time to go about taking hostages.

He nods his head toward the scythe. "Are you going to put that down?"

"That depends. Are you going to answer my questions?" Such bite in her words.

"Perhaps. That is contingent upon what you decide to ask."

"Nothing too prying, I would imagine." She narrows her eyes, brow furrowing entirely too much for his liking. In fact, her manner in general is entirely too much for his liking. Backbone is something which he is rarely required to handle in his transactions; he has slowly grown accustomed to Belle's grit, even developed a sort of respect for her because of it, but this obstinacy, this ire, this _entirely too much for his liking_, is unwarranted. He is the master in this relationship (wrong word for this, this, whatever _this_ is that they have) and it seems as though she has forgotten as much.

"This is truly how you've decided to handle whatever dispute you have with me?"

"Only because you leave me no other choice."

At this, he cannot help but smirk. "Oh, of course you have a choice, dearie. You always have a choice."

~o~o~o~

Belle grits her teeth. To think, he needed to get all liquored up to meet her face to face. She wonders, recalling the taste of spirits lingering on her tongue when she woke, exactly how much use that flask has gotten lately. Even his movements, usually so graceful, are awkward. His steps no longer flow into one another, but are loose, disconnected, and his feet hit the ground heavily, as though he is never quite ready for the impact of the floor. However, his speech leads her to believe that he is not quite so far gone as his carriage would propose.

This by far angers her more than anything he has done (or not done, as the case may be) over the past few weeks. Was last night's conduct nothing more than the product of a mind muddled by drink? Despite what she wishes to believe, that little niggle of doubt is flitting about in her head now, and it does absolutely nothing to improve her mood, especially when coupled with his remarks.

Her master makes his way toward her with those odd, disconnected steps, but then at the last moment he furrows his brow and changes course, strolling over to the fireplace, where he sets the flask atop the mantle.

"So, what'll it be?" he asks, back to her. "Drop this silly act and get back to work, or keep trying to be a brave, little warrior with a weapon you can barely even lift?"

How dare he.

How dare he mock her bravery, she who upon her own volition followed this man to his castle of dusty corridors and untouched rooms, of dark magic and lonely hours, sacrificed her life for the safety of her people, she who has approached the beast, spoken, touched, taken tea with him without flinching, defied his word and braved the depths of the west wing, hunted and drawn out the most powerful creature in all the land with naught but a mere axe to defend herself from his magic and wrath.

How dare he.

~o~o~o~

If one were to listen closely, one might be able to hear a faint snap, similar to that which a twig makes when stepped on. This is the metaphorical snapping of Belle's patience and calm disposition, and in a world of magic it seems probable that such a metaphorical snapping would be accompanied by an actual sound. Or, because this snap sends a shudder through her body, rocking her insides in a way she could not formerly conceive, it may be the sound of a rib cracking. She certainly feels wounded.

~o~o~o~

"I _choose_ not to allow this incessant hiding to continue," she hisses, "with you vanishing every time I set foot in the same room." He turns at the tone of her voice and opens his mouth to interrupt her, but she stomps her foot, cutting him off. "No, you listen to me, Rumpelstiltskin. I am fed up with your behavior. I can't handle being left alone for such extensive periods of time. I don't know how you've managed it for so long, but I-I _can't_. I mean, it's one thing to give up my life, my friends, my family, forever, but for me to lose the only person that I have left in the entire world, I won't allow it. I won't let you continue to shut me out."

"Belle —"

"And for you to stand there and mock me for attempting to confront this problem, because this _is_ a problem, in the only way I knew while you've been hiding away, a bloody coward, I will not tolerate that!"

She had originally meant for her words to come out calmly, but she finds her chest heaving by the time she finishes what turned into a tirade. This was supposed to be approached as a matter of business, with a level head, and instead she ends up releasing the anger that she has been bottling for the past few weeks. However, as she lowers the axe just a smidge, because her arms are beginning to protest, she witnesses something incredibly odd; her words, backed by more emotion than she has ever shown in front of her master, seem to have the desired effect.

He just stands there. His hands, which dropped to his sides halfway through her rant, are still. There is no mocking smile on his face, nor malice, each she equally expected and neither of which would have indicated favorable results, at least for her. Instead, what graces his features is something between bewilderment and alarm. She has rendered the great and terrible Rumpelstiltskin speechless, and if not for her anger she would be reduced to laughter at witnessing such an unheard-of occurrence.

Silence fills the room, interspersed by the crackling of the fireplace. "I take it that that is what you wanted to say?" he says at length.

"Er, yes…it is." She feels warmth spreading along the tips of her ears, but she holds her head high despite her embarrassment, straightens her back, and fixes him with a glare. Well, at least that part is out of the way now.

He clears his throat. "I was unaware that you felt so strongly." Truly, he has a look of abashment about him, brow furrows and eyes lowered to the floor, a sentiment of which she had thought him incapable.

She lessens the glare a bit. "If you'd given me a chance, I might've told you."

"Well…I'm here. I'm listening. What is it that you desire?" At this question, his voice rises slightly in pitch, and he spreads his arms wide with a bow.

And here, here is Rumpelstiltskin the deal-maker, Rumpelstiltskin the showman. Does he mean to make a mockery of her? No, no he does not, she knows. She has done this, proposed the deal, and he is only playing his part of the affair, donning the façade that he has worn thousands of times. It feels so very wrong for him to be this way with her, when she was certain that he cares for her, at least a bit, when she can remember his arms wrapped around her tightly in a manner of desperation. No, best not think of that now. She is contending with the crafty deal-maker now, the one who cares only for himself, not the attentive man who cares for her.

Oh, she could demand so much from him. She realizes that in her haste, her confidence, her newfound bravery, she overlooked one very important detail concerning his magic. She considered the possibility of retaliation, of course, but she only anticipated herself being affected by whatever he chose to do in response, such as being transformed into a newt. She overlooked the chance that he might simply summon the axe or wheel to his side, out of harm's way, as is his preferred method for fetching items. However, the fact that he has not yet done so is suspicious, very suspicious indeed. Either he is restraining the urge to conjure his property, to wait and learn what it is that she shall request, and then decide whether or not he shall indulge those wishes; or, something prevents him from doing so. She sincerely hopes that it is the second one. If not, this entire ordeal will have been for naught. Well, that is not entirely true, considering that at least she has been able to express the resentment that has been brewing within her. Now, she feels as though a weight has been lifted from her chest, and she breathes more easily.

She wants so much – answers, companionship, that wonderful friction and everything that goes along with it. She wants him to never again leave her in such a state of solitude that she has one-sided conversations with her plants and hopes for a response, because really, that was getting out of hand. She wants a forever that is not unhappy.

However, what she says is, "You'll stay here, by my side, until you truthfully answer all questions I ask." She knows that she is in a position to ask for much, that she is the one who holds the upper hand, but if he grants any further wishes only because he is forced to do so because of their deal, it will be worth nothing. It shall be a hollow victory, and if anything…it shall make him resent her. Honestly, she does not think she could bear that, for the one person in her life to resent her.

He looks at her strangely, as though she has said something absurd. Those dark eyes search her face, but what they seek she has no idea.

A smile forms on his lips, full of malevolence. "That's all?" he asks, striding across the room towards her. "You want answers," he twirls a hand through the air, "nothing more?"

She nods her head once, for she fears that if she opens her mouth to respond, the truth will come pouring out, the entire truth, desire for intimacy and all. And that, well…that would be mortifying.

"You're quite certain?" he asks, voice lilting high and grinning in such a way that decidedly unnerves her. He circles her, an inquisitive hum playing about his lips, and she wonders at why he questions her so. And then, she remembers something that she learned long ago. It is a very simple fact, one that her confidence managed to overshadow.

She is a terrible liar.

He has always been able to see past her fronts, her lies, as he had on that night in the labrary, which feels so long ago, as though he can peer into her very soul and read her thoughts and desires displayed on a piece of parchment, listed in her curling script. There is no need for her to spill the truth in a gush of confessions. She is certain that he already knows all that she desires, that his questioning is simply a means of mocking her. Anxiety churns in her breast, bubbling up into her throat and choking off anything she might say. All she can do is answer with another nod.

He sighs, lips pursed, as though disappointed by her resolve. "Very well. In return, you will never again threaten the safety of my property. You shall never damage anything that belongs to me."

She could discuss the particulars of the stipulation, regarding unintentional breakages and whatnot, but she wishes to be cooperative. It shall certainly be a challenge to keep her word, considering her clumsiness, but if this leads to the mending of bridges, it is one she is willing to accept. The important thing is that she has his cooperation. "You have my word," she finally says, bubble bursting in her throat.

Slowly, uncertainly, he bows his head. "Then you have mine." An odd sense of déjà vu overcomes her. The last time those words were uttered, she was dressed in impractical yellow and he seemed much more a beast. At the moment, he is once again the deal-maker, but now she knows that there is more to him. "It seems we have a deal," he says, and this time the pitch of his voice catches, and she can tell that his enthusiasm is hollow, because she knows him better than she did before. There is no cruel glee shining in those eyes; this is more a mask than she imagined. Perhaps it is because he has gained nothing in this arrangement, only managed to not lose a precious item by giving up something else. She has offended him, she thinks, by forcing him like this, by bringing deals into…whatever this thing is that they have. A thing that began with a deal, she remembers.

She holds out the axe for him to take. The dragon has surrendered, bowed its head, without any fire involved – she considers herself lucky – and so she has no further need for a weapon. Axes have no place in civilized conversation. However, he dismisses the offer with a wave of his hand. Snubbed, she moves toward the weapon's display in order to put it back. When he makes as if to follow her, she turns to him and raises a brow in question.

His hands flutter at his sides, a sign of unease more than restlessness, she thinks. "By your side, as you requested," he says.

Ah.

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_Oh, and the idea of ice wraiths did come from Skyrim, in case anyone was wondering. With a bit of Nord myth thrown into the mix for fun.  
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_As for that, I do not own Skyrim.  
_

___Hope you enjoyed! Until next time, and the interrogation :)  
_


	7. Part VII

_There have been so many people who've favorited or started following this story, so to all the newcomers, welcome! And to all those who've been reading since the beginning, I'm glad you've stuck around. In case anyone is interested, I'll be posting a one-shot companion piece to this fic, either tomorrow or the day after, called _Playing with Death_, so yeah if anyone's interested in that then you should totally check it out. Enough advertising, let us continue, readers!_

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The ease with which the deal was struck is a great relief to Rumpelstiltskin. He does not know what he would not have relinquished to Belle in order to retrieve his spinning wheel unharmed. She could have requested anything, to write to her father, relief from her duties, even freedom. And yet, despite the fact that she could have asked for any of her desires, for he can see that she has many, she requested only answers. She could have even insisted on mandatory amounts of contact with one another, since lack of companionship is what ruffled her feathers in the first place.

Answers can be dangerous, for knowledge is power. While he would not previously have thought of Belle as an enemy, this anger she is harboring certainly managed to startle him. Before her ailment, she bore him no ill will, but now? Well, now he cannot tell. However, this does not matter in regards to her wish. Despite what he may tell her, which in the end must be the truth (clever girl), it poses no threat to him. There is no one with whom she could share his secrets. Should he tell her how to take his power away, all that will result is another bout of life-threatening darkness if she attempts anything. He is the one with the power, and nothing he reveals will change that.

Standing so close to Belle, closer than he wishes to be, he detects a faint odor about her. Subtle, smoky. What was she up to, he wonders, rolling about in a fireplace? Ah, there, around her eyes, he spots what appear to be ashes. An improvisation in regards to cosmetics, perhaps, to bring attention to her eyes. And such lovely, periwinkle orbs they are. However, this is no new observation by any means. No, he has always been aware of the loveliness of her eyes. What catches his attention quickly afterward is that this smokiness is the most obvious scent wafting about her. There is a bit of melancholy and rage, but those are fading. Even less than those, he detects her innocence. It is still there, but muted, without that same headiness. More importantly, it fails to arouse anything within him. The potion is a success thus far.

Once the axe is in place, he asks, "Tea?" for it would be a waste to allow it to grow cold.

She assents to the suggestion, and when the rim of his cup touches his lips – the chip goes unfelt – his shoulders slump. It is the first thing that he has swallowed, other than spirits and affliction, in the past five days, and he wishes that he could taste it, damn this numbness. Rumpelstiltskin secretly loves Belle's tea. Despite the fact that he cannot fully enjoy the results of her efforts, simply the act of taking tea with his caretaker once again is enough to somewhat placate him.

"How bad was it?" she asks after a sip.

A glance out of the corner of his eye shows that she is simply staring into her cup. Ah yes, the questions. Straight to business, apparently. And that is enough to dissipate what good mood her tea bestowed upon him.

"How bad was what?" he inquires, because despite the fact that he knows exactly what she means, truly she could be referring to a number of things; and he is not going to give up the right answers if she will not ask the right questions.

Belle visibly tenses, stares ahead for a moment, and then sets down her cup on the table with purpose. "You know," she says, smoothing out her skirt, "I am trying to be civil." She takes a step in his direction, and there is that rage again, spiking suddenly; instinctively he takes one step backward, only to find that he is already against the table. "But I am angry with you, Rumpelstiltskin, very angry," she says, tone so cordial, with a smile lingering on her lips. He knows false smiles, has perfected his own, and he knows when pleasantness in a voice is meant to carry a warning. Despite his caretaker's grievances, she has clearly spent too much time in his presence. She reaches toward him, past the cup he holds up as a poor defense, and straightens the collar of his waistcoat. Rumpelstiltskin holds his breath. While mere proximity has been tested with positive results, contact is another matter entirely. So preoccupied is he in trying to gauge even the tiniest response to those hands, he stops listening to her pleasantly hostile voice. He feels a subtle shifting within his mind, like when a creature's sleep is disturbed and it begins to stir, then sniffs the air and rolls over, drifting back into slumber.

Success. A brilliant success.

She jerks a bit harder than necessary on the leather, snapping his attention back to her. "And if you continue to play coy, well…I don't know," she jerks again, "what I'm liable to do." Her hands linger, gently gripping the perfectly straightened collar, and he leans back just a fraction. Never before has Belle been so bold, in her words or her touches. She is the one who looks away when caught staring, the one who blushes, whose innocence weaves across her skin like delicate lace, and this change in her demeanor makes his mouth go dry. She releases his waistcoat and slides her hands down to rest against his chest, and she drums her fingers over his racing heart. He does not know whether or not he is relieved that he cannot feel her hands upon him.

"Playing coy, you say?" he chokes out, congratulating himself in that his voice does not break.

She nods her head.

"Perish the thought."

Her smile is not quite so hostile anymore, not quite so much like a wolf baring its teeth when she says, "Now, I suppose I should be a bit more specific." She leans toward him, so close, so close, face and lips _so_ close, and whispers, "My condition," gripping his shoulders, "exactly how bad was it?"

Rumpelstiltskin looks down and away from her eyes, features tight, and sees her waist ghosting against his. Oh, if she only knew how lucky she is that he cannot feel her touches, that her innocence is not so heady, that fire is not shooting down his limbs and through his chest, because he would be upon her in a moment, and he would not be gentle, and he would not give a lick for her screaming and thrashing, and he would bend her over the table and take her like a common scullery maid.

When she rests her forehead against his, periwinkle eyes staring so unabashedly, fingers surely trailing somewhere that he cannot see, and presses herself closer to him so that he can tell it is intentional as the pressure only just registers, he clutches his cup, his useless cup, so hard that he fears he may break the piece of crockery.

"Tell me," she demands. There will be no escaping the right questions, or her for that matter, and he can feel the magic entwined in their deal trying to force the answer from his mouth. Not that it is strong enough to actually pull the information out against his will (only the knife could compel him), but if he ignores his end of the deal, she will go about brandishing blades again and that sort of situation is one he would really prefer to avoid – besides, the sensation of aggravated magic humming about his person is annoying. He can feel almost nothing, but that cuts through the haze and into his senses with ease.

A casual rotation of the wrist and a flippant tone make the words, "Oh, you were fine, other than knocking on Death's door," sound more unconcerned than planned.

Her response is nothing quite as dramatic as a gasp and a hand pressed to her forehead in a fit of swooning, but her eyes widen, her face pales, and she abruptly releases him. He sags with relief, letting out a breath. Even without her purity on her side as a weapon, she still manages to make his head spin.

The change is nearly instantaneous. Gone is the aggressive siren, replaced with the demure Belle he knows. Her hands fidget awkwardly, and she lowers her eyes to the floor. She obviously was not expecting the answer he gave. That, or the very idea had been flitting through her mind, and his affirmation of such suspicions frightens her. Probably the latter, he thinks.

"What was it, exactly?" A pause, then, "The thing that made me ill," she adds for clarification, eyes narrowed. His Belle catches on quickly.

"A curse, meant to punish those after my property." That answer flows much more easily than the first, and the magic calms, no longer buzzing with ire. Best to just cooperate.

Belle lowers herself onto the table and picks up her cup once more. "But what _was_ it? A burning curse? A shrieking curse?" She pauses, glances at him sidelong. "A killing curse?" she ventures, voice low.

"Oh, no curse in particular. I simply infused it with my magic." Her guesses are interesting though. The old man never had a chance to regale him with the curse's internal effects, and Rumpelstiltskin had simply been satisfied that it killed him. He knew it burned, that much was obvious from the way Belle carried on about it, but shrieking? Curious.

She snorts. "Obviously. I doubt you would use someone else's magic." It amuses him just how far off the mark her appraisal of his character is, considering he would love (almost) nothing more than to get his hands on Her Majesty's power and dangle it in front of her face, conjuring up illusions of a true love lost until she is reduced to nothing more than a blubbering fool. Women are so easily injured by their own emotions.

Such as Milah, dead by her own wandering heart. Such as Regina, consumed by hatred for a child with a loose tongue. Such as Belle, unable to dwell without companionship.

"No, I literally cursed it with my magic. The essence of the power that makes me, well, _me_, was running through you."

"But it was so…dark." She shivers.

At this, he cannot help but raise a brow in amusement. "Have you forgotten who I am, dearie? I'm _the Dark One_. It's right there in the title."

"Right," she murmurs, a slight blush of embarrassment glowing beneath her eyes. Apparently, she _had_ forgotten, or at least did not draw the connection. Well, that certainly is interesting.

Her fingernails tap against her cup, betraying a nervousness of which he does not believe she is justified. After all, she is not the one being questioned. _She_ is not the one who was nearly assaulted. "What, er, what exactly happened last night?" she finally asks, fingertips pressed into the rim of her cup, china digging into her white flesh.

Rumpelstiltskin nearly chokes on his tea as images spring to mind, of her flushed face and heaving bosom, and he is thankful for the scales that fail to display the same incriminating ruddiness.

He chooses his words carefully. "You were in a state of severe hypothermia, so I did what was required to save your life." What he says is the truth. The fact that he jumbles up the truth, throwing in a bit of omission, is not lying. "I…apologize for not receiving your consent for such course of action, but you were feverish, raving, violent I might add," he explains, fingers wagging and pitch growing a bit more grandiosewith each word. She casts a sidelong look at him, brow raised, and he lowers his hand. "I needed to take action, so I did. You objected though, which is understandable. You were prone to vivid hallucinations during your indisposition and seemed to think me some sort of demon."

~o~o~o~

Feverish. Vivid hallucinations. Belle wonders if the images she recalls are nothing more than the product of an addled mind. By "course of action," she assumes that he is referring to holding her, in order to warm her body. It is entirely plausible that her mind took that action to a further degree, that her fantasies were projected into a false reality. And the scales she discovered, are those the result of an attack she initiated while under the impression that he was a creature bent on bringing her harm? She does recall, barely, a vague fear of those flashes of scales, mixed with the uncertainty of shifting shadows, and her memory is, admittedly, hazy.

"Did I hurt you?" she asks.

He actually laughs at that, a deep, throaty chuckle that shakes his entire frame. It is the kind of laughter that, well, she has never heard from him before. Usually high twitters and cackling echo at her misfortunes, but this carries nothing of his customary falsetto.

"You give yourself too much credit, dearie," he says, amusement ringing his words. An affronted glare checks his laughter, and he coughs into his hand. "A few scratches, nothing more."

That confirms it. She sighs into her cup, feeling rather foolish. To believe that she would have the courage to make so bold a move, to kiss the Dark One, as he has so kindly reminded her, and that he would return her affections, well…she _must_ have been hallucinating. But her attitude only moments ago gives her pause for thought. She has no idea what came over her, what propelled her to act in such a way, only that it left her lightheaded with a tight coiling sensation in the pit of her stomach. Perhaps she is still afflicted. She subtly feels her forehead, but there is only the subtle warmth of a blush against the backs of her knuckles.

"Nonetheless, your concern is appreciated," he says

At that, she looks up at him, and she can see the sincerity in the lines of his face. But there is something else amid the sincerity. There is weariness, so strong, that she has never before seen in her employer. It reminds her of her father, how he looked when she last saw him, burdened by war, exhausted both mentally and physically.

She misses her father, so much. However, that is a topic for another day.

"Are you alright?" she asks, setting down her cup.

"No," he says, though he looks like he wants to say something else, if the way his mouth twists is any indication. This whole honesty thing must be strange territory for him. He never lies, but this is more the sort of open, straightforward honesty, the kind that does not allow for subterfuge, which she believes he has not utilized much, if at all. "Just…tired," he adds, though she has a feeling that it is more than that. She has a feelings that is has to do with the fact that his breath is not laced with alcohol, but so cold that it chilled her cheeks. And now that she is paying attention she can see that the luster of his scales has dimmed, their lovely color paled a touch.

"Why?"

"Because Death does not appreciate being cheated," he snaps. His patience for questioning has run out, it seems. Really, she is surprised he has been such a good sport this long; not that he would have refused to answer her questions – they did make a deal, after all – but he could have been nasty about the whole situation, and he could have been much more resistant to her earlier treatment of him. It cannot be often that he finds himself on the receiving end of an interrogation. He must feel a bit like poor Jack now, strangulation aside. "Now, I happen to be paying the price for your soul. Be grateful."

Well, now she feels downright guilty.

She glances down to see a tremor run down one of his legs, then the other. The stupid man can hardly stand, and here she was harassing him and practically throwing herself at him. At once, her hand is at his elbow, fingers curling into his shirt. Wordlessly, she guides him over to his chair beside the hearth. Surprisingly, he does not resist in the slightest as Belle, pulling down on his arm and nudging a knee against his leg, gently lowers him into the chair.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" she asks. Her master is obviously out of sorts, severely. As his servant, it is her duty to provide him with comfort. As someone who cares for him, it is her desire to see him better as soon as possible. For him to be in such a state, barely able to stand, such a contrast from the nimble man she knows, is strange, worrying even.

"You can sit down and let me rest."

Obediently, she settles herself on the floor beside the chair, legs tucked beneath her skirt and hands folded in her lap.

"If you hadn't tried to die on me, this," he lazily gestures to himself, "wouldn't have happened."

"If you hadn't cursed that knife, I wouldn't have been ill." For all the harm it caused him, he treated her of his own volition. It is not as though she asked him to do it, though she is certainly glad he did. Still, he should not blame her when the urge to complete acts of kindness rears its metaphorical head.

"Well, you shouldn't have been in the west wing." His tone is reprimanding, and she bristles in response. However, she knows that she was in the wrong, not only for breaking one of his most important rules, but for invading his privacy, snooping amongst his belongings, ones she knows were guarded with charms of some sort. She may have been able to get past them, the reason for which she cannot comprehend, but it does not excuse her behavior. Curiosity does not justify rule breaking and privacy invading, but a small amount of defiance continues to swell in her breast.

"Well, you shouldn't have been avoiding me," she says.

Rumpelstiltskin only stares into the fire, mouth a thin line, a fist clenched on the armrest. Silence envelopes the room, awkward and stifling. They could continue to play this game of blaming one another, but it is one that neither can truly win, and it is one that will get them nowhere. Because he says nothing in response, she assumes that the victory is hers. However, it is a hollow victory, and she feels as though it is undeserved. Despite her arguments, Belle believes that they are both at fault, and no progress can be made if they continue to be so stubborn. She bows (not literally) and allows the victory to pass to Rumpelstiltskin.

"By the way," she begins, "I am…grateful, that is." She is, truly. Rumpelstiltskin may have been an utter pain this past month, and if it was not for his behavior she probably would never have gotten cursed, but the fact that he saved her, that he stayed by her side through the entire ordeal and did not give up on her, well, that makes up for things a bit. She rests her hand on his arm, though he does not react at all, not even flinch the way he previously would. "Thank you, for saving my life," she whispers.

She is still a bit sore at him, but she has never been one to hold a grudge for very long. And even if she was, she does not think she could hold one against him, especially for a charge like his. He has never laid a hand on her, never been malicious toward her – well, more than is normal for him – and well, loneliness aside, he has been good to her.

~o~o~o~

To receive such gratitude makes Rumpelstiltskin smile. It is not one of malice or mockery, but rather the type that only Belle is able to extract from him. This is not forced gratitude, meant to mask poorly-concealed disgust, given to a deal-maker, whose services are bought with trinkets, tears, favors and flesh. Hers is true, warm, and given freely.

Rumpelstiltskin is so glad that he did not allow her to die. It is the first time he has ever thought such a thing about a person.

"You're welcome," he says, turning to look at her. When he spies her hand upon his arm, he nearly jerks away out of reflex; apparently, the only touches he shall notice are those that will render him breathless. Even so, he has her again, safe and well, and that will have to be enough. It is all he can afford.

"I have one more question," she says, twisting her fingers about one another, fisting her dress repeatedly.

"Go ahead, dearie." Her fidgeting makes his mouth go dry, and he swallows around a lump in his throat. For something to have her so agitated, so nervous, it can be nothing good.

"Did I do something wrong? I mean, I-I thought that we were getting along well, that maybe we were…oh, I don't know what I thought." Rumpelstiltskin imagines that she will soon wear a hole in her dress if she continues to worry the material in such a manner.

He could tell her. He could explain the situation, of how he could no longer stand to be in her presence without wanting to itch so hard as to pry off his scales, that even the slightest touch was unbearable. Because of what he is, he wants to take the bright innocence she possesses and corrupt it just as he has managed to do so with every blushing maiden desperate enough to deal with him. Well, perhaps he would leave that last bit out. No need to tarnish her view of him any further. He could tell her that his behavior has, more than anything, been a means of protecting her.

A lot of good it did her in the end; and while intent should matter, it rarely ever does.

She sighs. "Regardless of what I thought, I fear as though either I was horribly mistaken or I've managed to ruin —"

"You've done nothing wrong, dearie. Trust me, if I took issue with something you'd done, I'd let you know."

"Then why've you been avoiding me?" So much for one more question.

"Personal matters, nothing more. And I'd like to leave it at that, if you please." He feels like kicking himself when she winces at the sharpness of his tone.

Just like that, the confession is retracted into that place of the mind where unsaid thoughts go, enclosed in shadow, never to emerge again. Honesty has never been his best feature, especially when it has not been demanded of him. And this is a confession for which the right question has not been asked. He hopes that she will leave the matter alone, for if she continues to pry, she will eventually ask the right question.

She nods her head, accepting his response as the truth (because he can say nothing else) but obviously wishing for something different. "Well, I-I'm satisfied with your answers. I'll leave you now." She straightens her skirt and moves to stand, but his hand loosely clutching hers seemingly of its own accord forces her to stop.

"Are you quite certain? No other queries flitting about in your head?"

"No, nothing important."

"Something…unimportant, then?"

Her head tilts to the side, eyes lifted to the ceiling in thought. "Perhaps. You tell me if it is. Will you be present at supper tonight?"

There used to be no inquiries of that sort, of inquiring about what had become habit quite some time ago. She would prepare supper, and he would attend, no questions asked. Now, routine has been broken, and what should be certainties are not. He spirited her away from the life she knew, and just as she became accustomed (dare he say comfortable?) to one with him, he managed to go and botch everything. In trying to protect Belle, he has ended up wounding her. To reduce such a calm, patient woman to screaming and taking hostages, that was never his intention.

Upon his return to the Dark Castle, when the darkness first began its work on her and she was still lucid, the first thing she said to him was _I've missed you_, and she begged him not to leave her side. He starved her of company, condemning her to a loneliness with which he has been familiar for so long. He took from her, as she said, the last person she had in the entire world, and he knows exactly what the magnitude of that sort of loss feels like.

And then, an odd realization overcomes him. This was why he feared losing her to his magic. Belle, at some point, became his last person, too. Oh, Regina is fine competition, and his connections, such as the hatter, are sometimes good for conversation, but Belle is…she is the one person who sees him as more than the Dark One, more than the deal-making, child-stealing Rumpelstiltskin. No person has ever sought out his company; the very idea is strange. No person has ever approached him without a deal in mind, said his name without scorn or fear, treated him as something more than a means to obtain their desires. No person except Belle. And he threw her kindness away in lieu of loneliness. It is one of the most stupid things he has ever done.

"Hmm, you're right," he says. "Certainly unimportant. Yet, a question is a question, and it must be answered. However, not now."

Her jaw goes slack for a moment, obviously shocked by his answer. "But I've chores —"

"Which can be finished later."

"But —"

Swiftly, he leans over the arm of the chair and presses a finger to her lips, silencing her more effectively than if he had sewn them together with magic. "Later."

No more loneliness. He is not yet ready to release her from his sight. A fear that he will never see her again consumes him, that she will disappear into the dark corridors of the castle, swallowed by shadows creeping out from crevices and corners, that she will disappear without leaving a trace, as though absorbed into the very walls.

It is a strange, illogical fear, he knows, but it is there just the same.

She nods her head in acceptance and settles herself beside the chair once more, ducking her head beneath his arm and leaning it against the armrest. For a while, neither one moves, neither speaks. This silence is not stifling, but rather the comfortable sort that once filled the spaces between offhand remarks made during midday tea.

"Do you mind if I read?" she asks after a bit.

He loves it when Belle reads, for it is during that activity that she is happiest. Just as he is most in his element when making deals, so is she when engrossed in a book. While reading, she exhibits the most extraordinary range of emotions, from loud laughter and bright smiles to huffs of anger and unhappy sniffles. In one instance, he had been shaken from a very delicate experiment by the most heart-wrenching cries he had ever heard, and that is saying something. Fearing that Belle had been severely injured, he went in search of her, nearly tripping on her at the bottom of the staircase, where she sat hunched over, sobbing, shoulders shaking, a book in her lap. Stupefied at the sight before him, he knelt down in front of her, placed a tentative hand on her shoulder (dealing with crying women has never been a particularly comfortable situation for him), and asked her what was wrong.

She looked up at him, with tears running down her splotchy face, and wailed, "Henry's dead, and…and now Cecilia has to raise their baby all on…on her own, and it isn't fair at all be-because he went through so much to rescue her from the pirates, and he…he was a good man!" And here she crumpled into his lap, hiccupping and clutching his lapels like the entire world was crashing around them, while he could do nothing but awkwardly pat her back and hum a little tune that usually worked on shrieking babes. Unfortunately, he learned that it does not work on crying housekeepers, and he was reduced to saying things like, "I'm sure she'll be fine," and, "He rescued her, that's the important thing."

When she finally calmed down and lifted her head, she gave him a little smile, tears still trickling down her cheeks, apologized for wetting his waistcoat, and said, "You're right. He saved his true love. That's what's important," voice congested. To think that talking fiction at her actually worked is…so very Belle.

The tears he is not quite so fond of, but the smiles…he loves her smiles, from tiny quirks of the mouth, to full beams, to wry smiles reserved for bittersweet endings, to private grins accompanied by a scarlet coloring of the cheeks. The last are his favorite.

He imagines that it is an escape for her, first an escape from a tedious life surrounded by nobles (he finds them to be an extremely dull lot), and now an escape from a tedious life in the prison in which she resides. At some point, she may have stopped seeing it as such a dreadful place to be, but leaving her isolated for so long can only have served to reverse that progress. He has been a cruel jailer as of late, he realizes, and now it is time to start making up for his blunders.

Before he can stop himself, before he even considers the consequences, the novel he last spied her reading is in his hands, violet smoke wafting in the air. A throb of pain in his chest, resonating through his entire body, forces a low groan from him, which brings those periwinkle eyes snapping up to his face. The discomfort is shortly absorbed into the numbness.

"You shouldn't strain yourself," she scolds. And there it is, the caretaker looking after him that he has dearly missed. To think, he, Rumpelstiltskin, not only tolerating, but yearning for the stern yet caring words of a housekeeper. But she is more than a mere housekeeper. She is more than a pawn. She is a queen wearing a servant's frock, a wolf in sheep's clothing. Beautiful, dangerous, wielding the power to make the Dark One complete sacrifices in her name.

"I'd much less prefer accompanying you to fetch it on foot." But he will not answer her question yet, will not let her go, despite the annoyed magic buzzing about him once again.

The novel passes from his hand to hers, this time without a lingering touch. There is no discomfort, but at the same time there is no pleasure to be gained, for he barely perceives the feeling of her fingers brushing his. He still wants her, of course, but now his desires are only those of a man, no longer tinged by those of the Dark One. He can still feel it, at the back of his mind, but it is as though resting within the shadows, a peculiar feeling. She opens the book and lowers her eyes to the page, scanning the text in silence.

The fire dancing in the hearth emits no warmth. Not that he is surprised, but still…a bit of warmth would have been nice amidst the coldness taking residence within him. Honestly, this drawback to which he is exposing himself has cut his patience further than usual. After he worked to eradicate the darkness from Belle's body, sacrificing his own strength, he still gives up the mere ability to feel for her. Is that strange, he wonders, to be willing to give up something for a person for whom one cares, to give perhaps a great deal more than necessary?

These thoughts bother him, serving to only increase his irritation, so he pushes them away and sinks deeper into his weariness. A sigh escapes his lips as he slouches in the chair. Let her see him in his weakened state, for he has not the stamina to maintain this façade any longer. If any were to judge him at this moment, she would be the last, he feels.

"Would you…read aloud?" he asks. It is a question that he has never before asked her, a desire he has never dared voice until now.

Her answer is a smile that crinkles her eyes and lights up her features more than the fire does. It is a smile that makes this numbness worth it. And he thinks that it is not strange at all, to make this temporary sacrifice of his strength for Belle, this loss of feeling.

What is strange is the thought that now…he does not know what he would not do for her.

* * *

_Hope you enjoyed :)_

_And I just couldn't resist putting in that little nod to the Disney film._

_Oh, and Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays!_


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